Rebellions, Sapeon merge to create Korea's first AI chip unicorn

Rebellions CEO Park Sung-hyun (Rebellions)

Artificial intelligence startup Rebellions said Monday that it has completed a merger with Sapeon Korea, SK Telecom’s AI chip subsidiary, to officially form Korea’s first AI chip unicorn under the unified name Rebellions.

The merger was finalized about six months after the plan was announced in June. Rebellions has valued the merged entity at around 1.3 trillion won ($929 million), based on the agreed merger ratio of 1:2.4 for Sapeon Korea and Rebellions, respectively.

The merged entity qualifies it as a unicorn, defined as a start-up valued at more than a trillion won.

Park Sung-hyun, who has been leading Rebellions, will serve as the sole CEO of the merged entity.

Park is an AI and system semiconductor expert who completed a Ph.D. program in computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has worked at Intel, SpaceX and Morgan Stanley.

Rebellions plans to expand its business areas and pursue international markets in collaboration with strategic investors, including SK Telecom and SK Group’s chipmaking unit SK hynix.

In particular, it aims to achieve tangible results in overseas markets such as the US, Saudi Arabia and Japan by working with SK Telecom on global expansion in the AI data center sector.

The merger unites top-tier talent from both companies to boost efficiency and speed in achieving an ambitious technology roadmap.

On the product development side, Rebellions intends to leverage the chiplet technology applied to its next-generation AI chip, Rebel, to meet AI demand proactively.

The company also plans to strengthen its leadership in the ecosystem of PyTorch, a leading open-source machine learning library, thereby enabling users to develop and implement AI services more efficiently.

“As the global AI chip market undergoes dramatic shifts, collaboration across industries has become the foundation for success,” said Rebellions CEO Park Sung-hyun.

“This merger combines deep expertise from Korea’s telecom, government and semiconductor sectors, which will not only drive innovation but also establish Korea’s leadership in the worldwide AI landscape," he added.

Rebellions will focus on organizational integration through a post-merger integration process over the next three months.