Meta in talks to acquire Korean fabless chip startup FuriosaAI: Forbes

Meta Platforms Inc., the parent of Facebook and Instagram, is in talks to acquire Seoul-based AI chip startup FurisosaAI Inc. and the discussion could be finalized as early as this month, Forbes reported on Tuesday.

Citing sources familiar with the matter, Forbes said Meta is among multiple companies showing interest in the fabless semiconductor maker.

FuriosaAI is a rare Korean chip designer with a specialty in accelerators that speed up AI applications. The acquisition talks come as it is working to raise fresh capital at a valuation of around 800 billion won ($550 million).

Founded in 2017 by Samsung Electronics Co.'s engineers, it makes neural processing units used to process massive data to run generative AI. It has been led by its founder and Chief Executive June Paik, a former Samsung and IMD engineer.

In 2021, FuriosaAI has already developed its own AI chip Warboy. In August 2024, it released an advanced accelerator chip RNGD designed for large language models and hyperscale data centers.

“Nvidia’s dominance cannot last forever. There is a strong push to establish an alternative semiconductor ecosystem,” Paik said in an interview with The Korea Economic Daily in October of last year.

"Nvidia's AI accelerators such as the H100 graphic processing units (GPUs), sought after by companies, are in short supply and too expensive," he added. H100 GPUs were priced at around 50 million won per unit last year.

RNGD delivers about half the performance of Nvidia's H100, but consumes only a quarter of the electricity, he explained during the interview. The total cost of building a system chip based on FuriosaAI's models is about 50% that of Nvidia's, he added.

Since its inception, FuriosaAI has raised $115 million in equity capital. Early this month, it attracted 2 billion won in additional funding from Seoul-based venture capital firm CRIT Ventures.

South Korea’s largest internet portal operator Naver Corp. and DSC Investment Inc. are among the early stage investors in Furiosa AI, in which CEO Paik holds an 18.4% stake. 

The Forbes report came as Meta seeks to reduce its heavy reliance on Nvidia amid the global generative AI frenzy since the launch of ChatGPT. Last month, the release of Chinese generative AI DeekSeek took global markets by storm.

In January, Meta announced its capital expenditures would reach up to $65 billion in 2025, with a vast chunk of that going to AI infrastructure investments.

It has been developing customized AI chips in collaboration with Broadcom Inc., a US semiconductor company.

Write to Yeonhee Kim at yhkim@hankyung.com

Jennifer Nicholson-Breen edited this article.