Korean startup launches AI chip

SEOUL, Feb 19 (Reuters): South Korean startup Rebellions Inc launches an artificial intelligence (AI) chip last week, racing to win government contracts as Seoul seeks a place for local companies in the exploding AI industry.

The company's ATOM chip is the latest Korean attempt to challenge global leader Nvidia Corp in the hardware that powers the potentially revolutionary AI technology.

AI is the talk of the tech world, as ChatGPT - a chatbot from Microsoft-backed OpenAI that generates articles, essays, jokes and even poetry - has become the fastest-growing consumer app in history just two months after launch, according to UBS.

Nvidia, a US chip designer, has a commanding share of high-end AI chips, making up about 86 per cent of the computing power of the world's six biggest cloud services as of December, according to Jefferies chip analyst Mark Lipacis.

The South Korean government wants to foster a domestic industry, investing more than $800 million over the next five years for research and development in a bid to lift the market share of Korean AI chips in domestic data centres from essentially zero to 80 per cent by 2030.