SK's Sapeon launches new AI chip for data centers

Korea's AI chip designer Sapeon unveiled its latest X330 neural processing unit (NPU) chip in its attempt to join the global race of AI chip development and challenge Nvidia.

Sapeon CEO Ryu Soo-jung speaks to the press on Wednesday at the SK Telecom headquarters in Jung District in central Seoul. [JIN EUN-SOO]

Korea's AI chip designer Sapeon unveiled its latest X330 neural processing unit (NPU) chip in its attempt to join the global race of AI chip development and challenge Nvidia.

The X330 NPU, which targets data centers, has been produced on 7-nanometer nodes by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC, and is set for mass production in the first half of next year.

Its arithmetic capability is four times that of the previous version, the X220, which came out in 2020. Its energy efficiency has also been increased by twofold from the X220, according to the chip designer.

"[Its capabilities] have improved, such as offering floating point arithmetic and expansion capacity to connect multiple chips," Sapeon CEO Ryu Soo-jung said in a press conference on Wednesday.

"It also offers connectivity to deliver arithmetic results through cloud [platform], but at the same time, it consumes less electricity. The product steps up from being a mere upgrade from the previous product."

Sapeon aims to target the global market on the back of X220's commercial deployment in NHN Cloud Center, a data center for Korean IT company NHN and SK Broadband's data center in Gasan-dong, Geumcheon District in southern Seoul.

The company said the X330 can also be used for a wider array of processing tasks compared to the X220, with processing large language models as an example.

It also has built-in IPs for video codec and video post-processing.

The X330 comes in two types.

The X330 Compact offers 367 teraflops with 16-gigabyte memory capacity, and the Prime offers 734 teraflops with 32-gigabyte memory.

"We wish to contribute to enabling anybody to access advanced AI technology at a low price by elevating the usage of AI chips in all segments of the industry," Ryu said.

Sapeon plans to launch chip intellectual properties for autonomous vehicles and AI NPU for advanced devices such as security cameras along with the X330.

Sapeon spun off from SK Telecom in 2022 as the first output of SK ICT Alliance, where three SK companies — SK Telecom, SK Square, and SK hynix — joined forces to target the burgeoning AI market.

The three companies invested a combined 80 billion won ($61.2 million) into the entity.

It attracted 60 billion won of investment from its series A funding from Ascent Equity Partners, Hana Financial Group, Mirae Asset Investment and others and was valued at 500 billion won in August.

BY JIN EUN-SOO [jin.eunsoo@joongang.co.kr]