Nvidia is reportedly discussing partnership options with domestic artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor design company Rebellions.
Bloomberg reported on the 21st (local time), citing people familiar with the matter, that Jensen Huang, Nvidia's chief executive officer (CEO), met this week with Park Seong-hyun, CEO of Rebellions, at the company's Santa Clara, California, headquarters to discuss potential partnership options. The scope of talks was said to encompass a technology partnership, equity investment, and even a full acquisition. However, negotiations are in the early stages, and whether a transaction will actually be concluded remains uncertain.
The talks came shortly after Rebellions said on the 19th that it is preparing an initial public offering (IPO) with the goal of listing on Korea's KOSPI. Earlier, in March, Bloomberg reported that Rebellions had selected JPMorgan Chase as lead underwriter for the IPO and was pushing for a listing at the end of this year or early next year.
Founded in 2020, Rebellions is a corporations that designs Neural Processing Unit (NPU) specialized for AI inference, and has raised a total of $850 million from SK hynix, Samsung Venture Investment, and ARM. At the time of its $400 million pre-IPO fundraising in March, the valuation was assessed at about $2.3 billion.
CEO Huang has pursued broad investments in recent years to maintain Nvidia's central position in the AI era. Late last year, he struck an unusual deal by signing a nonexclusive technology license agreement with Groq, a U.S. AI Semiconductor startup, and absorbing most of its engineering staff.