Meta logo in Menlo Park, California.
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Meta is in talks to manufacture South Korean AI chip startup FuriosaAI, in step with people conversant within the matter, a deal that will enhance the social media extensive’s customized chip efforts amid a shortage of Nvidia chips and a rising demand for picks.
The deal will likely be done as early as this month, one of many people acknowledged. Stamp Zuckerberg’s company is one of a lot of companies in talks to manufacture FuriosaAI, acknowledged yet any other person conversant within the matter. A FuriosaAI spokesperson declined to touch upon the “speculation,” citing policy. Meta didn’t straight answer to a requirement for comment.
The Seoul-primarily based fully mostly startup final raised funds perfect final week, when it obtained 2 billion won (about $1.4 million) from CRIT Ventures, a South Korea venture capital company primarily based by Jaejoon Song, used CEO of on-line gaming company Com2us. A valuation for the corporate used to be no longer disclosed.
In complete, FuriosaAI has raised about 170 billion won (about $115 million) in venture funding. Its early investors embody South Korean cyber internet extensive Naver and Seoul-primarily based fully mostly DSC Funding.
FuriosaAI used to be primarily based in 2017 and is led by June Paik, who beforehand labored at Samsung Electronics and AMD. As of primarily the most up-to-date public filingPaik owned an 18.4% stake in FuriosaAI.
In August, FuriosaAI unveiled its RNGD chip, which used to be developed in partnership with Taiwanese customized chip maker World Unichip Corp. “Whereas lowering edge GPUs exhaust up to 1,200 watts, RNGD (pronounced “Renegade”) is designed to feature with a thermal perform power (TDP) of perfect 150 watts,” FuriosaAI acknowledged in a weblog post about RNGD. “This makes RNGD an very most piquant different for mountainous-scale deployment of developed generative AI items delight in Llama 2 and Llama 3.” Llama 2 and Llama 3 are Meta’s publicly on hand mountainous language items.
FuriosaAI claims its RNGD chip has three instances better efficiency per watt than Nvidia’s H100 GPUs.
RNGD is an AI chip devoted to inference—the technique of running AI items—and is equipped with HBM3 chips from SK Hynix. HBM3 chips are a form of excessive-efficiency reminiscence most most vital for AI computing.
FuriosaAI claims its RNGD chip has three instances better efficiency per watt than Nvidia’s H100 graphic processing items, first launched in unhurried 2022, when running developed mountainous language items.
RNGD is deliberate to enter mass manufacturing within the second half of this Twelve months. LG’s AI look at lab and Saudi Arabian Oil Co. bear expressed hobby in utilizing RNGD. In September, the oil extensive signed a memorandum of working out with FuriosaAI and Cerebras Systems, a Sam Altman-backed AI chip maker, to “stumble on collaboration within the supercomputing and AI domains.”
In accordance to FuriosaAI’s latest financial outcomesthe corporate reported that revenue in 2023 rose extra than 10 instances to three.6 billion won, while losses narrowed to 63.7 billion won from 51.2 billion won.
The prospective acquisition comes as Meta and other hyperscalers comparable to Google Cloud and Amazon Web Products and services were rising their have customized chips. On Monday, Reuters reported that OpenAI is finalizing the perform for its first customized chips within the following couple of months.
It additionally comes perfect months after FuriosaAI’s elevated home rival, Rebellions, done its merger with SK Hynix-backed Sapeon. The mixed company, which operates below the Rebellions title, is South Korea’s first AI chip unicorn and is led by CEO Sunghyun Park, who earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT and has beforehand labored at SpaceX, Intel and Samsung.
Ahead of the merger, Rebellions had raised no longer decrease than $225 million from investors, making it the most efficient-funded AI chip startup in South Korea. Rebellions’ investors embody Saudi Aramco’s venture arm Wa’ed Ventures, Kakao Ventures, South Korean telecom operator KT, Temasek’s Pavilion Capital and Korelya Capital, primarily based and led by used French digital economic system minister Fleur Pellerin.
Other AI-connected startups within the semiconductor hub of South Korea embody basis model builder Trillion Labs and Linq, which helps hedge funds trail up equity look at tasks.
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