Nvidia has entered early-stage discussions with Rebellions, a South Korean startup focused on AI chips, on several possible forms of collaboration, reported Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter.
The collaboration options under consideration include a technical partnership, investment, or a potential acquisition.
The talks follow a meeting last week at Nvidia’s Santa Clara headquarters between the company’s CEO Jensen Huang and Rebellions co-founder and CEO Sunghyun Park.
Rebellions, established in 2020 and based in Bundang, specialises in the development of neural processing units for data centres, with a focus on AI inference workloads.
Inference, a process less demanding than AI training, supports the large-scale operation of AI services.
The company’s ATOM architecture is designed for generative AI tasks and has been employed with Red Hat’s AI software stack, reported Tech in Asia.
Rebellions has attracted approximately $850m in funding from investors that include Samsung Ventures, SK Hynix, and Arm Holdings. It has also received a direct investment from the South Korean government.
Nvidia has increased its focus on investments within the AI sector in recent years.
Past transactions have involved high-profile companies, such as the 2025 deal with US-based Groq, where Nvidia acquired a nonexclusive licence and employed most of the former’s engineering team.
Nvidia described the arrangement as not constituting an acquisition, as Groq continues independent operations and maintains its cloud business.
Sources caution that discussions with Rebellions remain at a preliminary stage, and there is no certainty that any transaction will occur.
Should an acquisition or similar arrangement be pursued, regulatory scrutiny could be expected, particularly from authorities in South Korea, where semiconductors are regarded as critical assets.
In March, Rebellions raised $400m in a pre-initial public offering (IPO) funding round led by Mirae Asset Financial Group and the Korea National Growth Fund. With this latest investment, the company’s total funding reached $850m, giving it an estimated valuation of $2.34bn.
“Nvidia opens talks with Rebellions on potential AI chip partnership” was originally created and published by Verdict, a GlobalData owned brand.
