Seoul, 13 February 2023 (GNP): On Monday, the South Korean start-up Rebellion Inc. introduced an artificial intelligence (AI) chip as it competes to secure government contracts. This move is part of the company’s effort to establish a foothold for local businesses in the rapidly growing AI industry in South Korea.
With its ATOM chip, Rebellion Inc. is joining the ranks of other Korean companies in the competition to rival global leader Nvidia Corp. in the AI hardware market. The significance of AI in the tech industry cannot be overstated, as evidenced by the recent success of ChatGPT, an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI and backed by Microsoft. In just two months after its launch, ChatGPT has become the fastest-growing consumer app in history, according to a report by UBS.
Nvidia, a U.S.-based chip designer, has established a dominant position in the artificial intelligence chip market, accounting for a staggering 86% of the computing power of the world’s six largest cloud services as of December, according to Mark Lipacis, a chip analyst at Jefferies.
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The South Korean government actively seeks to establish a strong domestic AI chip industry. Over the next five years, it has allocated over $800 million in funding for research and development. The government’s goal is to increase the market share of Korean AI chips in local data centers from near zero to 80% by 2030.
Rebellions’ ATOM chip is designed to efficiently handle computer vision and chatbot AI applications. Its targeted approach to specific tasks, as opposed to a general-purpose approach, results in power consumption of only 20% compared to an Nvidia A100 chip for those tasks, according to Rebellions co-founder and CEO Park Sunghyun.
However, according to experts, the South Korean government’s support could help local AI chip companies, like Rebellions, to gain a foothold in the market and increase their competitiveness against global leaders like Nvidia. This concentrated push could also drive innovation and contribute to the growth of the AI industry as a whole. The success of Rebellions’ ATOM chip, in particular, could help set the tone for other Korean artificial intelligence chip companies to capture a larger market share and make a name for themselves globally.