South Korean chip start-up FuriosaAI has turned down a US$800 million takeover offer from Meta Platforms Inc, choosing instead to grow the business as an independent company, a person with knowledge of the matter said.
Meta had been in discussions about acquiring Seoul-based FuriosaAI since the start of this year, the person said.
FuriosaAI is one of only a handful of Asian start-ups that have attracted Meta Platforms. Led by June Paik, who previously worked at Samsung Electronics Co and Advanced Micro Devices Inc, FuriosaAI develops semiconductors for artificial intelligence (AI) inferencing, or services.
Photo: Reuters
The eight-year-old company’s second-generation processor, RNGD (pronounced “renegade”), is designed to challenge products from industry leader Nvidia Corp as well as fellow start-ups Groq Inc, SambaNova Systems Inc and Cerebras Systems Inc.
Meta Platforms is investing heavily in AI infrastructure, seeking to better compete in a fast-moving race against the likes of OpenAI and Google as well as upstarts such as Hangzhou-based DeepSeek (深度求索).
The Menlo Park, California-based company is also working on its own chips designed for its own AI workloads, including powering the ranking and recommendations ads on Facebook and Instagram. In 2023, it introduced its first custom AI inference chips — and it unveiled an upgraded version last year.
FuriosaAI plans to raise capital before eventually pursuing an initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter. The start-up, which has about 150 employees, including 15 in its Silicon Valley office, is currently providing samples of its chips to customers including LG AI Research, the AI arm of the LG Group, and Saudi Arabian Oil Co, the people said.
They are part of a broader pipeline of about a dozen customers engaged in sampling during the first half of this year, they said.
The company’s latest chip, RNGD, is built on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (台積電) 5-nanometer process technology and uses HBM3 memory chips supplied by SK Hynix Inc.
Taiwan will prioritize the development of silicon photonics by taking advantage of its strength in the semiconductor industry to build another shield to protect the local economy, National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) said yesterday. Speaking at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee, Liu said Taiwan already has the artificial intelligence (AI) industry as a shield, after the semiconductor industry, to safeguard the country, and is looking at new unique fields to build more economic shields. While Taiwan will further strengthen its existing shields, over the longer term, the country is determined to focus on such potential segments as
UNCERTAINTY: Innolux activated a stringent supply chain management mechanism, as it did during the COVID-19 pandemic, to ensure optimal inventory levels for customers Flat-panel display makers AUO Corp (友達) and Innolux Corp (群創) yesterday said that about 12 to 20 percent of their display business is at risk of potential US tariffs and that they would relocate production or shipment destinations to mitigate the levies’ effects. US tariffs would have a direct impact of US$200 million on AUO’s revenue, company chairman Paul Peng (彭雙浪) told reporters on the sidelines of the Touch Taiwan trade show in Taipei yesterday. That would make up about 12 percent of the company’s overall revenue. To cope with the tariff uncertainty, AUO plans to allocate its production to manufacturing facilities in
COLLABORATION: Given Taiwan’s key position in global supply chains, the US firm is discussing strategies with local partners and clients to deal with global uncertainties Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) yesterday said it is meeting with local ecosystem partners, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), to discuss strategies, including long-term manufacturing, to navigate uncertainties such as US tariffs, as Taiwan occupies an important position in global supply chains. AMD chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) told reporters that Taiwan is an important part of the chip designer’s ecosystem and she is discussing with partners and customers in Taiwan to forge strong collaborations on different areas during this critical period. AMD has just become the first artificial-intelligence (AI) server chip customer of TSMC to utilize its advanced
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
RSS