KT Invests in AI Semiconductor Companies to Boost Korea's Nvidia...

Global Competition and Market Expansion with Domestic AI Technology
Contributing to Strengthening National AI Semiconductor Competitiveness

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Hye-seon] "Artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductors are a core area that can become South Korea's next-generation growth engine."

KT CEO Koo Hyun-mo is actively investing to nurture the "second Nvidia" by partnering with domestic startups. The goal is to become an "AI full-stack" provider that simultaneously offers hardware and software based purely on domestic technology.

30 Billion KRW Strategic Investment in Startups

On the 6th, KT announced it will make a strategic investment of 30 billion KRW in Rebellion, a domestic AI semiconductor design (fabless) startup, and engage in business cooperation. Rebellion has established a differentiated position in the AI semiconductor field with competitive ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) design capabilities. ASICs include semiconductors optimized for specific algorithms such as financial trading and autonomous driving.

Rebellion is KT's second strategic investment startup in the AI infrastructure sector, following MOREH, an AI infrastructure solution specialist company, last year. KT plans to accelerate its digital transformation growth and secure future business opportunities by entering the AI semiconductor field in earnest through cooperation with these companies. According to Gartner and others, as AI services such as robotics and autonomous driving become mainstream and cloud-based AI services expand, the global AI semiconductor market is expected to grow more than fourfold over ten years, from $26.7 billion last year to $117.9 billion by 2030.

Targeting Nvidia, the No.1 AI Semiconductor

South Korea ranks first in memory semiconductors and second in foundry (semiconductor contract manufacturing), but holds only a 1% market share in semiconductor design. The No.1 AI semiconductor in the market is Nvidia's Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), which holds an 80% market share. The high dependence on Nvidia is because most AI services and solutions are developed based on Nvidia's software 'CUDA.'

To overcome dependence on foreign GPUs and secure mid- to long-term AI capabilities, KT Cloud launched the world's first pay-as-you-go GPU service, 'Hyperscale AI Computing (HAC),' last year and is applying its own AI framework that supports CUDA. KT is also supporting the provision of the same development environment for GPUs from other semiconductor companies besides Nvidia.

When domestically produced AI semiconductors are commercialized, they can be applied to Hyperscale AI Computing through integrated development without significant restrictions, thereby laying the foundation for activating the national AI semiconductor ecosystem.

"KT to Serve as AI Semiconductor Control Tower"

KT plans to include Rebellion in its existing business cooperation to play the role of a control tower for AI semiconductor business, including next-generation AI semiconductor design and verification, and large-scale language model collaboration. KT will fuse KT Group's AI infrastructure and application services, MOREH's AI semiconductor operating software, and Rebellion's AI semiconductor capabilities to complete the construction of a massive 'GPU farm' with thousands of GPUs within this year. In 2023, KT plans to use its self-developed AI semiconductor exclusively for Hyperscale AI Computing on this GPU farm.

The AI semiconductors developed by KT aim for more than three times the energy efficiency and lower introduction costs compared to existing GPUs. KT plans to pioneer and secure the data center and autonomous driving markets. CEO Koo Hyun-mo said, "Rebellion, a leader in the domestic AI semiconductor field, will nurture global fabless companies like Nvidia and Qualcomm through collaboration with KT," adding, "Although the investment environment is becoming difficult, KT's investment in excellent startups will continue to expand."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.