ANN/THE KOREA HERALD – A fabless startup backed by South Korean telecom-to-chip conglomerate SK Group Sapeon said yesterday it would develop a new semiconductor optimised for on-device artificial intelligence (AI) as the market has been witnessing significant growth in recent years.
The company said it was selected to get support to develop prototypes for commercialising AI chips with edge AI, Internet of Things and embedded computing firm Advantech Korea under the project dubbed Compass, run by the state-run government research institute Korea Planning and Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology.
“We will strengthen the semiconductor ecosystem by securing Korea’s highest level of AI technology capabilities and infrastructure,” Sapeon Chief Executive Officer Ryu Soo-jung said.
The system semiconductor prototype production support project matches companies with demand in the system chip industry with chip suppliers and provides development expenditures.
Under the project, the two firms will target the high-powered edge AI computing market.
Edge AI is the combination of edge computing and AI which runs machine learning tasks directly on connected edge devices to make processes faster without connecting to the cloud or offsite data centres.
Sapeon will develop an edge server card using its existing data centre-based AI chip technology development capabilities while Advantech will take charge of developing an edge server equipped with the SK-backed fabless firm’s chips.
