(Bloomberg) — Korean AI startup Upstage is in discussions with Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) to buy 10,000 of its latest AI accelerators as part of an effort to bring large-scale compute into the country.
Upstage Chief Executive Officer Sung Kim said he discussed the procurement of AMD’s MI355 accelerators when he met with the US chipmaker’s CEO Lisa Su in Seoul last week. “We have a lot of Nvidia chips in Korea, but we want to diversify to other chips, including AMD’s,” Kim told Bloomberg Television on Monday.
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Upstage is one of four teams competing in a state-backed race to select Korea’s best national AI foundation models. The tournament, dubbed the “AI Squid Game” in a nod to the popular Netflix survival drama, is part of the country’s ambition to become one of the world’s top AI powerhouses.
The teams’ AI foundation models face evaluation and elimination every six months by a panel of judges overseen by the Ministry of Science and ICT. Korea is set to select two finalists by early next year. The winners receive a greater number of Nvidia Corp.’s graphics processing units.
Upstage is currently preparing a large language model with about 200 billion parameters for the upcoming round in the summer, Kim said. The startup’s edge lies in building high-performance models with relatively lower costs by combining scale with efficiency — an approach aimed at countering low-priced competitors from China, he added.
Kim also said he’s targeting countries like Vietnam and the UAE with sovereign AI systems that can be deployed within their own borders.
—With assistance from Naman Tandon.
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