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FuriosaAI Eyes $500 Million Expansion as RNGD Architecture Hits the Spotlight

South Korean startup FuriosaAI is reportedly raising $500 million to challenge the AI hardware status quo with its power-efficient RNGD accelerator.

South Korean startup FuriosaAI is reportedly raising $500 million to challenge the AI hardware status quo with its power-efficient RNGD accelerator.

South Korean startup FuriosaAI is reportedly raising $500 million to challenge the AI hardware status quo with its power-efficient RNGD accelerator.

NewDecoded

Published Jan 20, 2026

Jan 20, 2026

3 min read

Image by FuriosaAI

South Korean semiconductor pioneer FuriosaAI is reportedly seeking to raise up to $500 million in fresh capital to fuel the mass production of its second-generation AI accelerator. The company's new chip, dubbed RNGD (pronounced Renegade), aims to disrupt the data center market by providing high-performance inference for large language models at a fraction of the power consumption required by industry leaders. This funding round would solidify FuriosaAI's unicorn status as it prepares for a global rollout in early 2026. Unlike traditional GPUs that rely on fixed-size matrix multiplication, FuriosaAI has developed a proprietary Tensor Contraction Processor architecture. This design treats high-dimensional tensor operations as first-class primitives, significantly reducing the overhead of data movement and logistics. By streamlining how hardware handles deep learning math, the RNGD chip achieves higher utilization rates for modern generative AI models as detailed in their technical blog.

The RNGD accelerator delivers 512 TFLOPS of FP8 compute power while operating within a strictly constrained 180W thermal profile. It features 48GB of HBM3 memory and a massive 256MB of on-chip SRAM to ensure that bandwidth-heavy workloads like Llama 3 remain efficient. This power-sipping design allows enterprise customers to deploy advanced inference capabilities in standard air-cooled data centers without expensive liquid-cooling infrastructure upgrades.

To support its hardware, the company provides a comprehensive software stack that integrates directly with PyTorch 2.x and standard containerization tools. FuriosaAI has already partnered with major players like LG AI Research to demonstrate performance gains of over 2x per watt compared to legacy solutions. Hardware manufacturing is backed by industry giants including TSMC and GUC, ensuring a stable supply chain for the upcoming production ramp according to the official specifications. Looking ahead, the company is positioning itself as a primary alternative for organizations running open-source models who are wary of the rising costs associated with flagship AI chips. Early access programs for RNGD are currently active, with turnkey server systems expected from partners like ASUS and Supermicro. The next twelve months will be a critical spotlight period as the first large-scale deployments hit the enterprise market via their developer portal.


Decoded Take

Decoded Take

Decoded Take

This reported funding round signals a shift in the AI hardware industry away from raw power at any cost toward sustainable total cost of ownership. As NVIDIA continues to dominate the high-end training market, a clear vacuum has emerged for efficient, inference-only hardware that fits into existing power grids. FuriosaAI’s focus on the air-cooled segment suggests that the future of enterprise AI lies in accessible, localized deployments rather than just massive, liquid-cooled hyperscale clusters. If the RNGD chip delivers on its efficiency promises, it could break the current monopoly on high-performance inference and force a pricing correction across the semiconductor landscape.

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