Government to Foster 'National AI Champions'... National Growth Fund Bets 800 Billion Won on Furiosa AI

[Financial News] The National Growth Fund has approved an 800 billion won investment in artificial intelligence semiconductor design company Furiosa AI, signaling the government's push to nurture the AI chip industry is gaining momentum.
According to KB Securities on the 20th, the National Growth Fund approved an investment of about 800 billion won in Furiosa AI at the end of May. Of that amount, 370 billion won will be deployed as a direct investment from the Advanced Strategic Industries Fund, while 400 billion won in policy financing, including 30 billion won from Korea Development Bank (KDB), will also be injected. The remaining 400 billion won is expected to be raised through private capital.
Furiosa AI is the third company to receive direct investment from the National Growth Fund. The move is seen as part of the government's broader effort to expand support for companies in AI and semiconductors as strategic national industries.
This investment will be made at the pre-IPO stage. Based on the funds secured, Furiosa AI plans to focus on expanding production of its second-generation neural processing unit (NPU), Renegade (RNGD), and developing a third-generation NPU, codenamed Stork, built on next-generation HBM4E with a 2-nanometer process.
Furiosa AI is a fabless company that develops neural processing units optimized for AI workloads. It launched Warboy, Korea's first server NPU, in 2021 and introduced Renegade, a high-performance AI inference NPU using HBM, in 2024. Mass production began in January this year.
The company is widely regarded as having secured strong competitiveness in high-performance, low-power AI computing through its independently developed Tensor Contraction Processor technology. By splitting data into smaller units for processing, it is reducing computational load and improving power efficiency as it targets the AI inference market.
KB Securities researcher Tae Yoon-seon said the center of the AI infrastructure market is shifting from training to inference as generative AI and multimodal AI spread. She added that demand for power-efficient NPUs is rising from the existing GPU-centered structure, which is also increasing Furiosa AI's growth potential.
Furiosa AI was named a unicorn company in 2025, and its cumulative fundraising before this investment stood at about 340 billion won. Its pre-investment valuation is estimated at around 3 trillion won. If private fundraising is completed, its post-investment valuation is expected to reach 3.8 trillion won.
Interest from global big tech companies is also continuing. Furiosa AI reportedly received an acquisition offer worth about 1.2 trillion won from Meta in March last year, and it is also said to be pursuing cooperation with Broadcom on mass production of third-generation AI chips worth more than 200 billion won. In Korea, LG AI Research has applied Renegade to its large-scale AI model EXAONE, while Samsung SDS has also been secured as a new customer.
Despite its differentiated technology, Furiosa AI's revenue remains modest and losses continue, researcher Tae said. She added, "With support from the National Growth Fund, the startup can overcome financing difficulties and move toward securing a global lead by expanding mass production of its products."



dschoi@fnnews.com Choi Du-seon Reporter