Lee Okwon Visits FuriosaAI: "Finance Must Play the Role of Venture and Patient Capital for AI Sovereignty"

Visit to FuriosaAI and Roundtable with Value Chain Companies
24 Percent of National Growth Fund Investments Allocated to AI Sector

Eokwon Lee, Chairman of the Financial Services Commission, met with domestic artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor companies to discuss measures for supporting the development of Korea's AI ecosystem and strategies for assistance through the National Growth Fund.

On May 12, Chairman Lee visited FuriosaAI, a leading domestic AI semiconductor company, where he toured its production and research facilities and held a roundtable discussion with major AI companies. FuriosaAI is currently under consideration for direct investment from the National Growth Fund. This on-site visit was arranged to inspect the neural processing unit (NPU) industry, which is the domestic AI semiconductor sector, and to strengthen support through the National Growth Fund based on an understanding of the AI industry.

Chairman Lee stated, "At present, our AI ecosystem is heavily dependent on graphic processing units (GPUs) from foreign companies and AI models from big tech firms. Securing independent computational infrastructure, data, and model capabilities is essential for AI sovereignty and industrial security." He further emphasized, "Because AI is not a short-term race with immediate results, both venture capital and patient capital are essential, and finance must play that role."

During the roundtable, the participating companies introduced their current status and future investment attraction strategies, and demonstrated their products and services.

FuriosaAI presented the real-time inference performance of its next-generation AI semiconductor, Renegade, specialized for inference tasks. The company explained that Renegade offers superior performance per watt compared to the GPUs of global companies, making it a viable solution to the power demand challenges faced by AI data centers. FuriosaAI also announced plans to raise several hundred billion won through a future capital increase, securing funds for the mass production of second-generation semiconductors and the development of third-generation semiconductors.

Upstage, a provider of AI solutions for enterprises and government as well as large language model (LLM) technologies, which recently secured a large-scale investment from the National Growth Fund, shared its plans for advancing next-generation business-to-business (B2B) AI models and for developing the 'Solar Open' LLM model for general consumers.

As of April 2026, the National Growth Fund had executed a total of 11 investments amounting to 8.4 trillion won. Of this, four investments totaling 2 trillion won were made in the AI sector, accounting for about 24% of the total. Specifically, the fund invested 640 billion won directly in AI semiconductor company Rebellions and 560 billion won in Upstage. It also provided 400 billion won in investment and financing to the National AI Computing Center, and supported Naver with 400 billion won in low-interest loans.

Chairman Lee noted, "In the future, finance will evolve from a focus on financial statements and collateral to 'finance that understands industry,' which can recognize the potential of technology, data, talent, and ecosystems. We will broadly examine and support even the field of 'physical AI,' which will fundamentally transform our daily lives and industrial sites going forward."