Nvidia is exploring a deal with South Korean AI chip startup Rebellions, Bloomberg reported on Friday, in a move that would extend the chip giant’s reach beyond its own GPUs into a crowded field of accelerator challengers.
The two sides are discussing a potential agreement, though the report offered no detail on whether it would take the form of an investment, a partnership or something closer to an acquisition. Rebellions, a Seoul-based company that designs AI accelerators, is valued at roughly $2.3B.
Any Nvidia tie-up would land in a market where Seoul has poured public money into AI chips as part of a national push to build homegrown computing infrastructure. Rebellions has emerged as one of the country’s most prominent independent accelerator designers.
Nvidia has been on a deal spree of late, putting capital into everything from data center developers to AI infrastructure startups as it looks to lock in demand for its technology. An alliance with Rebellions could serve a dual purpose: a strategic hedge in Asia and a way to shape how Korean AI workloads are built.
For Rebellions, a deal with the world’s most valuable chip company would validate years of effort to break into a market dominated by Nvidia’s own accelerators and software stack.
Neither company has commented publicly on the talks, and Bloomberg cautioned that negotiations may still fall apart.
