Forbes: "Deal Could Be Finalized as Early as This Month"
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is reportedly in talks to acquire Puriosa AI, a South Korean AI chip design startup, to develop its own artificial intelligence (AI) chips.
Mark Zuckerberg (Photo by Yonhap News)
On the 11th (local time), the U.S. economic media outlet Forbes cited sources saying that the acquisition discussions could be completed as early as this month.
Sources stated that several companies are currently interested in acquiring Puriosa AI, and Meta is one of them.
Puriosa AI, which Meta is reportedly considering acquiring, is a fabless (semiconductor design-specialized) startup developing semiconductors specialized for AI inference operations in data center servers. It was founded in 2017 by CEO Baek Jun-ho, a former engineer at Samsung Electronics and the U.S. semiconductor company AMD. The company unveiled its first AI semiconductor, "Warboy," in 2021, and announced the next-generation AI semiconductor "Renegade" in August last year.
Meta's interest in acquiring Puriosa AI is analyzed to be for developing its own AI chips. Meta is currently spending a huge amount on purchasing AI chips from Nvidia. Accordingly, it is also collaborating with the U.S. semiconductor company Broadcom to develop its own customized AI chips.
Meanwhile, Puriosa AI has raised approximately $115 million (KRW 167.2 billion) to date. Naver and the Korean investment firm DSC Investment participated in the initial funding round, and CEO Baek is reported to hold an 18.4% stake.
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