[The Future of K-Semiconductors ③] MangoBoost, AMD's Key Partner Challenging NVIDIA

Kim Jangwoo: "NVIDIA's True Weapon Is Not a Single Chip, but the Connection System"
Korea's Path Lies in 'AI Infrastructure Independence'
Must Become a Platform Company That Dominates the System
Solving Data Input/Output Bottlenecks to Unlock the

Kim Jangwoo, CEO of MangoBoost, poses for an interview with The Asia Business Daily at the office in Sadang-dong, Seoul. Photo by Paek Jongmin, Tech Specialist

In the race to win the artificial intelligence (AI) war, governments and companies are pouring astronomical budgets into securing Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs) or, as an alternative, developing neural processing units (NPUs).

However, there is one person who asserts that such strategies alone are not enough to secure victory in the AI war. That person is Kim Jangwoo, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Seoul National University and CEO of the data processing unit (DPU) development startup MangoBoost.

Throughout his interview with The Asia Business Daily, Kim emphasized that "Nvidia's real weapon is not a single chip, but the system that connects those chips," and highlighted the need for Korea to pursue a new path toward 'AI infrastructure independence.'

After meeting Kim at the 'Supercomputing 2025 (SC25)' event in St. Louis, USA, in November of last year, we met again in early December at the MangoBoost office in Sadang-dong, Seoul. His conviction that Korea should become a platform company dominating the entire system, rather than simply selling components, had become even firmer with the arrival of the new year.

According to Kim, the biggest weakness of Korea's system semiconductor industry is 'fragmentation.' While world-class fabless companies designing NPUs have emerged, there is a lack of 'system architecture' to smoothly control data when those chips are installed in data centers. Kim defined this as the role of MangoBoost.

"No matter how good an engine (NPU) you build, if the road (network) is unpaved, you cannot achieve speed. MangoBoost is a company that lays the 'expressway' to resolve data input/output and network bottlenecks so that domestic NPUs can deliver 100% of their performance."

Recently, Kim has been strengthening strategic cooperation with leading domestic accelerator companies such as FuriosaAI and HyperAccel. Rather than a simple memorandum of understanding (MOU), the strategy is to physically integrate MangoBoost's DPU technology with domestic NPUs to build a 'K-AI infrastructure full stack' that can be immediately deployed in data centers without relying on foreign equipment.

"Nvidia's strength is not the GPU chip itself, but the powerful network connectivity it secured through the acquisition of Mellanox. While our NPU companies focus on chip performance, MangoBoost will support system-level optimization to ensure there is no performance degradation even when dozens or hundreds of chips are clustered together. Only by moving as 'one team' can we overcome the formidable barrier that is Nvidia."

◇Nvidia's next-generation 'Vera Rubin' storage DPU mirrors the concept = Ironically, MangoBoost's technical foresight has been proven by Nvidia's latest moves. Kim was surprised when he confirmed the detailed specifications of Nvidia's next-generation architecture 'Vera Rubin,' unveiled at the world's largest electronics and IT exhibition, CES 2026. Nvidia introduced a DPU concept with greatly enhanced storage functions to alleviate the data bottleneck for GPUs, and its structure and functions were similar to MangoBoost's products.

MangoBoost is currently supplying this technology to AMD, which is chasing Nvidia. In effect, Nvidia has adopted the very secret weapon that AMD is using to catch up. Despite having powerful GPUs (the MI300 series), AMD had struggled to catch up with Nvidia due to a lack of software optimization and networking technology. MangoBoost seized this opportunity and became AMD's partner.

"AMD's GPUs are excellent in terms of specifications, but when connected to actual data centers, they often failed to deliver full performance due to software issues. However, when we attached the 'Mango LLMBoost' software and DPU to AMD systems, performance reached a level comparable to Nvidia. The price is significantly more competitive than Nvidia systems, yet the performance is the same, so customers naturally welcomed it." Currently, AMD introduces MangoBoost as a key partner on its official blog and in technical white papers.

Currently, more than 110 out of MangoBoost's 140 employees are based in Korea. The core team consists of Kim Jangwoo's students from Seoul National University and talented Korean engineers who previously worked at Samsung Electronics, Google, and Nvidia. These world-class talents, who receive annual salary offers of 500 million to 1 billion won from Silicon Valley companies, have chosen to stay in Korea, united by the determination to prove themselves in the system semiconductor field where Korea has been relatively weak. The US corporation serves merely as an outpost for global business and large-scale investment, while the heart of MangoBoost beats in Korea.