Amazon and AMD Back Upstage, a Korean AI Startup, with $45M Investment

Amazon and AMD have invested in South Korean AI startup Upstage, a company that has raised $157 million in total funding. Upstage plans to use the funds to scale its next-gen foundation model and expand its reach in the US and Asia-Pacific. As part of the deal, Upstage will use Amazon Web Services to build and deploy its models. The partnership could give Upstage an edge in compute-hungry workloads and put it on a collision course with established players in the LLM arms race.

Amazon and AMD have invested in South Korean AI startup Upstage, which has raised $157 million in total funding. The funds will be used to scale Upstage's next-gen foundation model and expand its reach in the US and Asia-Pacific. As part of the deal, Upstage will leverage Amazon Web Services (AWS) to build and deploy its models [1].

The partnership could give Upstage an edge in compute-hungry workloads and put it on a collision course with established players in the large language model (LLM) arms race. Upstage's strategic use of AWS, which offers specialized tools like SageMaker and Trainium chips, could lower costs and improve efficiency for AI developers. This move aligns with Amazon's broader international AI expansion strategy, which includes strengthening its position in Asia-Pacific, one of the fastest-growing technology markets worldwide [1].

The investment by Amazon and AMD reflects their optimism for Upstage's potential. Amazon's minority stake in Upstage signals confidence in Korea’s AI ecosystem, while AMD's involvement underscores the growing importance of AI in semiconductor technology. The partnership extends into a joint go-to-market strategy, which is expected to expand AWS’ pipeline across APAC and enhance its global AI credibility [1].

Amazon's competitors in the AI space, such as Microsoft and Alphabet Inc., are also reinforcing their leadership in the cloud-AI race. Microsoft Azure grew 39% year-over-year in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, while Alphabet Inc.'s Google Cloud delivered 32% year-over-year growth in the second quarter of 2025, driven by Gemini models and custom chips [1].

Upstage's strategic partnership with Amazon and AMD positions it to capture high-value workloads and secure leadership in APAC’s competitive AI market. By combining Upstage's local expertise with AWS’ global scale, Amazon is positioning itself to capture high-value workloads and secure leadership in APAC’s competitive AI market [1].

References:
[1] https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/amazon-pushes-ai-expansion-apac-will-aws-upstage-deal-pay