The National Growth Fund will support domestic artificial intelligence (AI) chip company FuriosaAI to expand mass production and develop next-generation chips. It will also provide funding to Smilegate, which is building an AI data centre, and vaccine developer SK Bioscience.

The Financial Services Commission approved support for five projects worth 4.14 trillion won, including a direct investment in FuriosaAI, at a meeting of the fund's investment review committee held on May 28. With the latest approvals, the National Growth Fund's cumulative approved amount rose to 12.5 trillion won across 16 projects.

The most notable agenda item is an investment in FuriosaAI, a domestic AI chip fabless company. The fund is pursuing a direct investment of around 800 billion won to support mass production of FuriosaAI's high-performance neural processing units (NPUs) and development of next-generation products.

It will be financed with 370 billion won from the Advanced Strategic Industries Fund and 30 billion won from the Korea Development Bank. The remaining 400 billion won is being raised through participation by private investors, including Naver, Korea Investment Partners, KDB Capital, Woori Financial Group, Hanwha Asset Management and overseas investors.

FuriosaAI develops server AI chips specialised for AI inference. It launched its first-generation NPU, "Warboy", in 2021 and introduced its HBM-based high-performance NPU, "Renegade", in 2024. It began mass production of Renegade in January this year. The investment is set to be used to expand Renegade production and develop a next-generation product, "Stoke", using a 2-nanometre process and HBM4 and HBM4E.

The committee explained it approved the large-scale investment to advance domestic inference AI chips and help FuriosaAI grow into a global leading company. Because FuriosaAI has not yet reached a stage of large-scale sales, the aim is to supply policy financing so there is no funding gap during the mass production process.

It is also pushing ahead with AI infrastructure investment. The National Growth Fund will provide 500 billion won for Smilegate's "K-content AI data centre" project in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province. Of that, 250 billion won will be equity investment and the remaining 250 billion won will be provided in the form of subordinated loans.

Smilegate will use the funds to build 2 data centres. Each centre will have 50 MW capacity, for a total of 100 MW. Smilegate plans to use part of the centres itself and lease the rest to small and mid-sized companies such as domestic game firms.

In the biotech sector, it will support a 300 billion won long-term, low-interest loan for SK Bioscience's development of a 21-valent pneumococcal vaccine and expansion of its Andong vaccine plant. SK Bioscience is conducting a global Phase 3 clinical trial for a pneumococcal vaccine with French drugmaker Sanofi. Funding will come from 250 billion won from the advanced fund and 50 billion won from the Korea Development Bank.

In the secondary battery sector, it will support a 220 billion won long-term, low-interest loan to help L&F subsidiary L&F Plus build a lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathode material plant in the Daegu National Industrial Complex. The advanced fund and the Korea Development Bank will provide 170 billion won and 50 billion won, respectively. L&F Plus is pursuing annual mass production capacity of 60,000 tonnes of LFP cathode materials.

Approval was also granted for 20 billion won of funding support for Geunu, a switchboard manufacturer for data centres based in Eumseong, North Chungcheong Province. Geunu designs, manufactures and installs switchboards used in AI data centres. The National Growth Fund expects the support to expand production capacity for power equipment and have an effect of strengthening supply chain internalisation.