South Korea’s AI chip startup FuriosaAI has reportedly turned down an $800 million acquisition offer from Meta, choosing to double down on its mission to develop next-generation AI chips. According to local reports, the deal collapsed due to disagreements over post-acquisition business strategy and organizational structure rather than pricing concerns.
Meta, like other major tech players racing to build large language models (LLMs), has been aggressively seeking alternatives to Nvidia’s powerful AI chips. With ambitions to reduce dependency on Nvidia, Meta introduced its own custom AI chips last year. In January, the company revealed plans to invest a massive $65 billion in its AI initiatives this year alone.
However, Meta’s attempt to acquire FuriosaAI — which would have strengthened its chipmaking capabilities — fell through as the two companies failed to align on long-term operational plans. Neither Meta nor FuriosaAI responded to requests for comments.
While rejecting the Meta deal, FuriosaAI is now focused on strengthening its position in the AI chip market. The Seoul-based startup is currently raising about $48 million (KRW 70 billion) from investors, aiming to close the round by the end of this month, sources familiar with the matter revealed.
Founded in 2017 by June Paik — a former Samsung Electronics and AMD executive — FuriosaAI has developed two AI chips named Warboy and Renegade (RNGD). Both chips were designed to compete directly with industry giants like Nvidia and AMD, offering more specialized performance for AI applications.
FuriosaAI recently completed testing of its RNGD chip, optimized for reasoning models that support advanced AI tasks. The tests were conducted in collaboration with LG AI Research and Saudi Aramco. LG AI Research reportedly plans to deploy these RNGD chips to power its AI infrastructure, marking a significant milestone for FuriosaAI’s commercial ambitions.
With plans to officially launch the RNGD chips later this year, FuriosaAI is positioning itself as a key player in the growing AI chip industry — one that could offer competitive alternatives to Nvidia’s dominance. As AI models grow increasingly complex, demand for powerful and efficient chips like those from FuriosaAI is expected to soar.
