Rebellions, a South Korean artificial intelligence chip designer, has set up a local subsidiary in Singapore to accelerate its push into Southeast Asia. With rival FuriosaAI also establishing a base in the city-state recently, competition between Korea's leading AI chip companies is spreading beyond chip performance into a race to secure a foothold in Asia's AI infrastructure market.
Rebellions completed the process of establishing the Singapore subsidiary in July, according to venture industry sources on the 27th. Initial capital was set at 1 million Singapore dollars (about 1.06 billion won, or $760,000), with Chief Financial Officer Shin Sung-kyu listed as the head of the local unit. An official local chief executive is expected to be appointed through local hiring.
The Singapore unit is Rebellions' fourth overseas subsidiary, following those in Japan, Saudi Arabia and the United States. It will serve as a strategic hub for the company's push into Southeast Asia. Rebellions plans to use the unit as a springboard for entering neighboring Southeast Asian markets as well, courting customers among local governments, companies and AI data center (AIDC) operators.
Along with the launch of the subsidiary, the company is also recruiting local technical staff. Rebellions plans to hire Singaporean full-time engineers and assign them to handle everything from initial technical discussions with clients to product demonstrations, proof of concept (PoC) work and AI infrastructure deployment. The strategy is to build a sales operation that goes beyond simply selling chips, entering customers' data centers directly to jointly optimize AI models, servers and software.
The company has already begun stepping up local marketing. Rebellions will take part in Tech Week Singapore 2026 on the 29th and 30th, where it will showcase its latest neural processing unit (NPU), the Rebel100, along with integrated AI infrastructure products built around it, including the RebelRack and RebelPod.
Rival FuriosaAI also recently launched a Singapore unit and began a full-scale push into the Asia-Pacific market. FuriosaAI will use Singapore as a base for business development, sales and technical support. It plans to market its second-generation NPU, the Renegade (RNGD), and the NXT RNGD server to Southeast Asian governments and AIDC operators.
Both companies chose Singapore because the center of gravity in AI chip competition is shifting from performance alone toward securing global customers and partners early. In Asian markets in particular, where government-led sovereign AI projects draw strong interest, the companies concluded that customers demand a comprehensive package spanning server deployment, software optimization and local technical support.
"Based on the Singapore subsidiary, we plan to aggressively develop our business targeting local sovereign AI demand and other opportunities," a Rebellions official said. A FuriosaAI official said, "We will continue to expand our local workforce and strengthen our technical support capabilities so that we can assist customers from initial technology validation through to building actual commercial environments."
