South Korean startup PuriosaAI, which specializes in the production of artificial intelligence chips, has rejected Meta's offer to acquire the company for $800 million. The startup's management rejected the offer due to disagreements over business strategy and organizational structure after the potential acquisition, Maeil Business Newspaper reports.
Meta's intention to acquire PuriosaAI was first reported in February 2025. The tech giant planned to use the South Korean startup's technology to reduce its dependence on NVIDIA chips, which is the leader in the AI accelerator market. According to sources, Meta wanted to integrate PuriosaAI's technology to create its own custom chips, while the startup's goal is to become an alternative to NVIDIA.
"Since October last year, Meta has been looking for several AI semiconductor companies in the U.S. and Israel, and has finally made Puriosa AI a viable acquisition target and negotiated it since the beginning of the year. The two sides have failed to narrow their differences over the business direction and organizational composition after the acquisition rather than the price," said sources familiar with the case.
There have been industry concerns about the South Korean startup's financial health, but FuriosaAI plans to raise 70 billion won (~$47.7 million) in funding next month, which will be used to prepare and mass-produce Renegades chips.
The South Korean startup is collaborating with LG AI Research and Aramco to develop the chips. Renegade is the startup's second generation of products and is optimized for large language models with thinking capabilities. They are manufactured using TSMC's 5-nanometer process and consume only 25% of the power used by competing chips. In addition, Renegade will be the first chips in the world to use two high-bandwidth memory chips HBM3.
The cost of the upcoming PuriosaAI chips will also be only half that of the NVIDIA H100, which remains the most popular AI accelerator on the market. The startup plans to launch mass production of the Renegade in the second half of 2025.