AI chip startup Rebellions has secured more than 800 billion won ($590 million) in funding and is accelerating its push into the global AI services and data center market. The company was selected as the first investment target of the National Growth Fund and received large-scale capital injections from domestic private investors. On this basis, Rebellions plans to mass-produce its next-generation AI chip this year and pursue an initial public offering (IPO). As a flagship "K-Nvidia" contender, the company aims to expand its presence in the global AI chip market. Park Sung-hyun, CEO of Rebellions, who is leading the future of Korea's AI chips, will take the podium as a special lecturer at Seoul Forum 2026, to be held on the 27th and 28th of this month.
Meeting with Seoul Economic Daily at the company's office in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province on the 7th, Park said, "By developing the next-generation AI chip 'Rebel100,' we can now finally compete in earnest with Nvidia's 'H200.'" He emphasized, "Rebel100 holds great historical significance as Korea's first and only server-type AI chip." He added, "Other domestic competitors' products are AI chips for PCs rather than data centers, which sets them apart from Rebel100."
What Rebellions aims to achieve through Rebel100 is ending Nvidia's monopoly in the global AI chip market. While Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs) still hold the edge in versatility and performance, the company believes it has reached a level where it can sufficiently catch up in the inference domain. "AI data centers are essential infrastructure for the AI industry, and if we become 100 percent dependent on Nvidia products, significant losses in national competitiveness could occur when product supply is blocked due to international circumstances," Park said. "Our goal is to help not only Korea but the entire world reduce dependence on Nvidia."
Rebellions has completed customer sample testing of Rebel100 and begun mass production through Samsung Electronics' foundry. While the company has not disclosed specific production volumes or whether supply contracts have been signed, it is understood to have received positive feedback from several overseas customers and is approaching formal contracts. "Although the scale is not yet large for Rebel100, full-scale mass production has begun and discussions with customers are underway," Park said. "We expect Rebel100 to be as successful as Krafton's PUBG."
Rebellions cited outstanding inference capability as Rebel100's strength. The company explained that Rebel100 outperforms Nvidia's H200 in inference-related benchmark scores and also has advantages in power efficiency and price competitiveness. "The H200 is an excellent product with strong versatility, showing smooth performance in various fields including inference, training and 3D rendering," Park said. "Nevertheless, our Rebel100 shows higher performance than the H200 in terms of inference capability, and we expect sufficient utility and demand."
In particular, the growing importance of inference capability in recent AI services is one of the opportunity factors for Rebellions. "Many first-generation AI chip companies at home and abroad started by keeping both training and inference open, but we decided to focus only on inference from day one of our founding," Park said. "The strategy of selection and concentration ultimately worked."
Park predicted that inference-specialized products in the AI chip market will move closer to commoditization. Just as differentiation decreased after a small number of smartphone products achieved a certain level of technology, the performance gap in the inference-type AI chip market could gradually narrow. "Once a certain threshold of technology is crossed and there is no significant gap between products, people will inevitably start considering price and power efficiency rather than performance or brand," Park said. "Since Rebellions' products have already secured high technological capability in inference, we will be able to find significant opportunities when commoditization progresses in the future."
Based on Rebel100, Rebellions plans to launch aggressive marketing targeting not only companies developing large language models (LLMs) and AI services but also hyperscalers operating AI data centers. In particular, the overseas regions Rebellions is focusing on are the Middle East, Europe and the United States. In the Middle East, close cooperation is expected with Saudi Arabia's oil company Aramco and AI company Humain. In Europe, the company is discussing AI chip supply with French AI unicorn Mistral AI. Rebellions and Mistral AI share the common trait of having received investment from French venture capital firm Korelya Capital.
"Although the Middle East war has not completely ended yet, I plan to visit Saudi Arabia and Qatar this month," Park said. "Interest in Rebellions' products is particularly high in the Middle East, and we will flesh out cooperation plans with local customers." He added, "In Europe and the United States as well, we are expanding discussions on Rebel100 adoption centered on AI service companies and data center operators. Quickly building actual references in the global market is our most important task this year."
Rebellions is focusing not only on the future AI chip market but also on the robotics industry, refining its next-generation product development direction. In particular, the company is considering developing specialized chips that can effectively respond to AI agent services, which are expected to expand in the future. It is also reviewing the development of AI chips that can accelerate the era of physical AI. "We are paying attention to changes in AI agent services and robot technology," Park said. "In the case of robots, it is one of the markets we are watching, given the high likelihood that NPUs will be mounted on each robot in an on-device form in the future."
Rebellions will also begin its IPO process in earnest this year. Internally, the company is strongly reviewing the option of submitting a preliminary listing review application in the second half of this year. While the domestic stock market is the priority for listing, the possibility of an overseas listing remains open. "Five years have passed since we were founded, and I think we are now ready to stand on the world stage," Park said. "As the first investment target of the National Growth Fund, we will wield our sword in the global market with the mindset that Rebellions' success is essential for Korea's challenge to become one of the top three AI powers."
