Samsung partners with Rebellions to develop AI chip

Samsung Electronics formed a strategic partnership with Rebellions, a Seoul-based AI chip designer, to develop a processor for generative AI, as the tech giant tries to bolster its standing in the AI semiconductor business.

The processor, called Rebel, is due to be developed by the end of next year, according to Rebellions on Thursday.

Rebel is a neural processing unit designed to facilitate the inference process of generative AI, and will be produced using Samsung’s 4 nanometer manufacturing process at its U.S. factory.

Rebellions will design the processor while Samsung will fabricate it in addition to supplying the memory chips, tentatively named HBM3E.

“Samsung Foundry will actively engage in all aspects of development, from logic design to layout and verification, leveraging the Korean semiconductor ecosystem,” Rebellions said in a statement.

The two parties expected the collaboration to benefit the ecosystem of Korea’s semiconductor business.

“Samsung regards the system semiconductor market, particularly for AI semiconductors, as a core future business. Through collaboration with Rebellions, we aim to further develop the our system semiconductor ecosystem,” said Samsung Electronics Foundry Business Vice President Jung Ki-bong.

Park Sung-hyun, CEO of Rebellions echoed the expectation.

“To seize the opportunity presented by the generative AI market, we believe that the maturity of Korea's semiconductor ecosystem, collaborations, and our global success in memory semiconductors are essential.”

The announcement follows orders from Tenstorrent, a Canadian semiconductor company, and U.S.-based AI chip designer Groq.

BY PARK EUN-JEE [park.eunjee@joongang.co.kr]