National Growth Fund Makes Direct Investment of 250 Billion Won in AI Semiconductor Firm Rebellions

Part of "K-NVIDIA Fostering" Project
Investment in Mass Production and Next-Generation Development of AI Semiconductors

Rebellions, an artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor fabless (design) startup, has been selected as the first direct investment company by the National Growth Fund and will receive a total of 250 billion won in support.

The Financial Services Commission announced on March 26 that the Fund Management Deliberation Committee of the National Growth Fund approved this agenda item during its meeting.

This investment is part of the "K-NVIDIA Fostering" project, in which the Advanced Strategic Industry Fund will provide capital for Rebellions' "AI Semiconductor (NPU) Mass Production and Next-Generation AI Semiconductor Development Project."

Rebellions had previously disclosed a total funding need of 600 billion won to secure capital for mass production and development. The 250 billion won to be invested by the National Growth Fund will be provided in the form of redeemable convertible preferred shares (RCPS). RCPS is a type of preferred share that gives holders the right to redeem their investment under certain conditions as well as the right to convert into common shares, and is widely used in venture investment.

This support program covers both the mass production of the ultra-large-scale data center AI semiconductor "Rebel100TM," which Rebellions developed in August last year, and the development of next-generation AI semiconductors. Rebellions aims to expand mass production of Rebel100TM by July this year.

Rebel100TM is notable for being equipped with "HBM3E," a next-generation memory solution designed to address bottlenecks caused by memory bandwidth limitations. It also features high-efficiency processing units and advanced chiplet packaging technology that connects chips like Lego blocks, resulting in superior computational throughput and power efficiency.

This agenda item is one of the seven projects announced in the first round of mega projects at the end of last year. It is the fourth to be approved, following the "Shinan-Uui Offshore Wind Power Project" in January, the "Ulsan Next-Generation Secondary Battery Material Plant Construction Project (ISU Specialty Chemicals)" and the "Pyeongtaek Line 5 AI Semiconductor Cluster Construction Project (Samsung Electronics)" in February. Notably, it is the first direct investment case for the National Growth Fund.

An official from the Financial Services Commission stated, "Unlike previous first-round mega projects, this project involves direct investment by the National Growth Fund, so we expect it will help share the technical uncertainties and risks associated with venture companies."

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