KT Corp., South Korea's No. 2 mobile carrier, said Wednesday it has invested 30 billion won ($23 million) in Rebellions Inc., a local artificial intelligence (AI) chip startup, to participate in the fast growing field of AI chips.

The deal signed Monday marks KT's second strategic investment in the field of AI, following its partnership with Moreh Corp., a South Korean AI infrastructure startup, last year.

Founded in 2020, Rebellions has made notable strides within the AI chip market for its outstanding competitiveness in designing high-quality custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips, according to KT.

KT said it plans to make a full-fledged entry into the AI semiconductor field, which is currently dominated by U.S. chipmaker Nvidia Corp. globally, through its partnerships with the two startups.

Through the partnerships, KT plans to establish a large-scale GPU farm within the year and later integrate its proprietary AI semiconductor developed using hyperscale AI computing technologies. (Yonhap)