Meta is reportedly in discussions to acquire a South Korean chip company called FuriosaAI as part of its efforts to enhance its artificial intelligence hardware capabilities. According to Forbes, Meta may make an official announcement regarding the purchase soon, potentially within this month.
FuriosaAI, which was founded by former employees of Samsung and AMD, is known for creating chips designed to accelerate the operation of AI models, including popular text-generating models like Meta’s Llama 2 and Llama 3.
So far, FuriosaAI has successfully raised about 90 billion Korean won, equivalent to roughly $61.94 million, from various investors, including the South Korean technology firm Naver, as reported by Crunchbase. Additionally, FuriosaAI has indicated that it is currently engaged with unnamed potential clients located in the United States, Japan, and India.
This acquisition aligns with Meta’s strategy to decrease its dependency on major chipmaker Nvidia, while also supporting its own development of efficient AI accelerator chips. The company has ambitious plans to invest significantly in its AI capabilities, with expectations to allocate up to $65 billion this year to achieve its goals in this area.
By acquiring FuriosaAI, Meta aims to strengthen its position in the competitive landscape of AI technology, ensuring that it can further develop and deploy innovative AI models efficiently. As the demand for AI technology continues to grow, securing a reliable source of advanced chips will be crucial for Meta to maintain its leadership in the sector.
