Nvidia holds early talks with Korean inference-chip startup Rebellions

Nvidia is in early-stage talks with Rebellions, a South Korean designer of AI inference chips, about a possible technical partnership, an investment or an outright acquisition, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The talks are preliminary and may not produce a deal. But even exploratory interest from Nvidia signals how far the company is willing to reach to lock up the inference market — the business of running trained AI models in production, as opposed to the training workloads Nvidia already dominates.

Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang met Rebellions co-founder and chief executive Sunghyun Park this week at Nvidia’s headquarters in Santa Clara, California, the people said.

Founded in 2020, Rebellions has raised roughly $850 million from investors including SK Hynix, Samsung Ventures and Arm Holdings, and was last valued at about $2.3 billion. It designs chips specialized for inference rather than training.

Any transaction would likely draw close scrutiny. Given Nvidia’s grip on AI computing, a deal could attract review from the U.S. Department of Justice and from South Korean regulators. The timing is also awkward: Rebellions’ finance chief recently said the company was preparing an initial public offering on South Korea’s main stock exchange.

Neither company has confirmed the discussions, and the details rest on a single account. Whether they lead anywhere may hinge on how regulators view yet another Nvidia move to extend its reach across the AI chip stack.