Journalist
Candice Kim김혜준
candicekim1121@ajupress.com
ReporterSamsung Electronics, SK hynix, LG Electronics, Olive Young, Musinsa & Semiconductor, K-Beauty
Candice Kim is a dedicated business and technology reporter specializing in the intersection of high-tech innovation and fast-paced consumer trends. Her core beats span the semiconductor, IT, cosmetics, and retail sectors, where she provides in-depth coverage of industry titans including Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, and LG Electronics, alongside leading consumer brands like Olive Young and Musinsa. Whether analyzing complex silicon supply chains or tracking the latest shifts in beauty and fashion retail, Candice is committed to delivering sharp, accurate reporting that keeps readers informed on the forces shaping today's most dynamic markets.
"Connecting the dots from silicon chips to consumer shifts."
Latest by Candice Kim
-
AI windfall buys homes, cars and luxury watches in Korea's chip enclave HWASEONG, August 27 (AJP) - At Lotte Department Store in Dongtan, a saleswoman sizing up a customer offers a pitch that would sound peculiar almost anywhere else. "Your husband makes a lot of money this time. You can afford to treat yourself," she coos. There is no need to specify who the husband works for. Dongtan sits inside South Korea's semiconductor heartland, within commuting distance of Samsung Electronics' chip operations in Hwaseong and Giheung as well as SK hynix Icheon connected by company shuttle buses to the country's increasingly prosperous cleanroom class. After an extraordinary run in artificial intelligence-driven memory demand, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix workers are receiving bonuses that would have sounded fantastical barely two years ago. SK hynix is doling out packages worth as much as 700 million won ($507,000) in cash and shares, while Samsung has promised semiconductor employees packages worth around 600 million won, mostly in stock. Some workers outside the chip divisions receive only a fraction of that. The money is certainly going somewhere. It is showing up in record apartment prices, imported cars, foreign-brand watches and jewelry, and families squeezing two overseas vacations into one summer break. What is harder to find is the boom on Dongtan's Main Street. Café owners say business remains grim. An optician says sales have actually fallen. Private academies have not seen parents suddenly double their spending. A local travel agency says the bonus bonanza has barely registered. Dongtan offers a close-up view of a peculiar wealth effect taking shape around Korea's semiconductor boom: when the windfall becomes large enough, workers stop treating it like extra salary and start treating it like capital. The result is an enclave getting richer without necessarily making the neighborhood around it richer. Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are expected to generate roughly 650 trillion won in combined operating profit this year, an extraordinary sum equivalent to nearly a quarter of South Korea's 2025 nominal gross domestic product of 2,676.7 trillion won. Their earnings, share prices and employee bonuses have dominated financial headlines for much of the year. For Korean retail traders, the two names have alternately represented heaven and hell as their shares swung wildly. Inside semiconductor communities, however, the newly minted wealth has remained more discreet. The profligacy is rarely overt. The cleanroom society tends to keep to itself. Housing prices have been less discreet. Apartment prices in Dongtan have risen 16.3 percent so far this year, the steepest increase in the country, while rents have climbed 10.9 percent, according to Korea Real Estate Board data. An analysis of Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport transaction records by Woori Bank's Real Estate Research Lab found that 319 of 494 apartment unit types traded in Dongtan between June and Aug. 25 — 64.6 percent — fetched their highest-ever transaction price during the period. That was the highest proportion anywhere in Gyeonggi Province. Some jumps have been startling. A 97-square-meter apartment at The Sharp Central City in Cheonggye-dong sold for 2.16 billion won, 500 million won above its previous record. A 128-square-meter unit at Dongtan Station Demonstration Hanwha Dream & Green Prestige changed hands for 2.4 billion won, exceeding its previous peak by 420 million won. For some Samsung employees, property prices have been rising faster than their bonuses can catch them. "After receiving the bonus, I started looking into moving to Dongtan," said Hwang, an employee in Samsung Electronics' Device Solutions division. "But prices rose so much in the meantime that now I can't even dream of moving there." Even within Dongtan, the boom has picked favorites. The planned city south of Seoul is divided broadly between the older Dongtan 1 district and newer Dongtan 2, where newer apartments, transport connections and proximity to semiconductor workplaces have made property especially attractive. A real estate agent in Dongtan 1 said Samsung employees are everywhere in the neighborhood. Their money is not. "We don't really feel it here," the agent said. "Apartment prices have gone up, but Dongtan 2 has risen much more." The distinction captures something important about semiconductor wealth: it concentrates. Seo Jeong-ryeol, a professor of real estate studies at Youngsan University, said employees receiving large payouts are unlikely to scatter their money indiscriminately across nearby housing markets. They seek some combination of commuting convenience, residential quality and investment potential. "If conditions are similar, people inevitably prefer places with the best residential environment or the highest investment value," Seo said. Inside what he calls the "shuttle-bus sphere" of Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, the best-positioned homes therefore benefit first. "People don't buy a house somewhere random just because a big company or SK hynix is making money," Seo said. "The priorities become proximity to work and apartments with investment value." Another stream of money arrives Sept. 1. Samsung Electronics plans to offer eligible employees who do not own homes loans of up to 500 million won at an annual interest rate of 1.5 percent. In the Seoul metropolitan area, the program is expected to cover homes priced at 2.5 billion won or below with residential space of up to 85 square meters. The anticipation is already producing behavior usually associated with a rapidly rising property market. Kim, a Dongtan resident, had agreed to move into an apartment when the owner abruptly walked away from the deal. "The landlord didn't say anything and just sent back twice the deposit," she said. "I think the owner believed they could get a higher price." Under a common Korean property-contract practice, a seller can cancel after returning twice the buyer's deposit. Seo said owners become willing to absorb the penalty when they think the property will appreciate by even more. "If they are paying double the deposit to cancel, it means they believe there is a good chance the price will rise further," he said. Walk out of those apartment towers, however, and the prosperity becomes much harder to spot. Local merchants had expected a bumper year after news spread of semiconductor employees collecting record performance bonuses. Instead, some are wondering where everybody took the money. "People ask whether the local economy has improved, but it hasn't," said an optician who has worked in the area and serves many employees of large companies. "Bonuses were paid out, but sales haven't increased. They've actually decreased." From what the optician sees, younger workers would rather own another stock than another pair of glasses. "From what we see, they invest a lot in stocks," the optician said, adding that property is another favored destination. A café owner had made the same assumption many merchants did when Samsung's earnings began surging. "I have to admit we expected to share the windfall," she said. "I thought that if Samsung was paying out bonuses, there would be more economic activity." The customers never quite arrived. In earlier boom periods, large company orders for snacks or other supplies would occasionally spill into neighborhood businesses, she said. This time, merchants around her complain that conditions remain unusually difficult. Her own spending priorities help explain why. "If I suddenly had a large sum of money, I would move house or pay down some debt," she said. "Shopping isn't something that leaves you with anything." Shopping does become attractive when the purchase is big enough. Lotte Department Store's Dongtan branch recorded a 25 percent increase in sales in the first half from a year earlier, beating growth of roughly 20 percent across Lotte's department-store network. Sales of luxury goods and foreign-brand watches and jewelry at the Dongtan store jumped roughly 40 percent to 45 percent. The pattern suggests semiconductor money is bypassing routine purchases and concentrating instead on things substantial enough to feel like rewards. Cars fit the pattern. New registrations of imported vehicles in Hwaseong, which includes Dongtan and Samsung Electronics' Hwaseong semiconductor campus, surged 42.5 percent to 4,273 in the first half from 2,998 a year earlier, according to the Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association. Imported-car registrations nationwide rose 33.2 percent during the same period. The numbers do not establish that Samsung bonuses are buying BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes. Some Samsung workers, however, say the payouts have made previously postponed purchases easier to contemplate. "I've wanted to replace my car for a while," said Lee, a Samsung Electronics employee. "I'm thinking this might be the chance, so I've been looking at different models." Travel money is harder to trace. A Dongtan travel agency has seen little obvious bonus-related surge, an employee said, partly because workers at large corporations often book through company-affiliated benefit platforms offering employee discounts. "There are separate travel agencies linked to their companies," the employee said. "Even for the same travel product, they tend to book through those channels to get employee discounts." "Sales haven't increased enough for us to really feel it." Younger workers are even harder for neighborhood agencies to capture because they book flights and hotels themselves through mobile apps. The money may be going abroad. It simply does not stop at the local travel agent first. One educator noticed the departures. Yoo, who works with school-age children in Dongtan, said this summer produced an unusual number of absences as families took repeated trips. "In the past, families would go abroad for three or four days during vacation and that was it," Yoo said. "This time, they keep going." Some squeezed multiple domestic and overseas trips into the relatively short summer break. "They went to Vietnam, and then they would say they had to go to Japan too — two trips," she said. The same families were not suddenly spending twice as much on education. Lee Eun-hee, professor emeritus of consumer science at Inha University, said performance bonuses occupy a different mental account from monthly salaries. Education is already considered a priority expense for many Korean households. A large unexpected payment therefore does not necessarily persuade parents to add another private tutor or move their children to a more expensive academy. The bonus instead creates an opportunity to do something ordinary income could not easily finance. "When money that wasn't expected suddenly comes in, people may think about upgrading their home," Lee said. "That means adding to their assets." Savings and asset accumulation are likely to absorb a substantial portion, she said, with another share going toward expensive wants households have postponed. "Travel, luxury goods and imported cars — things they wanted to do but couldn't normally do," Lee said. Yang Joon-mo, professor of economics at Yonsei University, puts the matter more simply. "People there aren't going to eat two dinners," Yang said. "Children who already attend academies aren't suddenly going to pay twice the tuition." Once a bonus reaches hundreds of millions of won, he said, it stops behaving like spending money. "If someone receives, say, 600 million won, the question becomes whether they buy a home in Dongtan or add that money and move to Gangnam," Yang said. "The money flows according to a completely different logic." Korea has seen versions of the pattern before. Yang said windfalls created during previous export booms often migrated from the places where the money was earned toward higher-value property and financial assets elsewhere. "When someone suddenly comes into a large amount of money, the concept changes to asset investment," he said. The semiconductor enclave may prefer to keep its newfound riches to itself. But Dongtan's soaring apartment prices, crowded airport itineraries and department-store sales counters are making that increasingly difficult. AJP Takeaways • South Korea's AI-driven semiconductor boom is creating a concentrated wealth effect in Dongtan, where Samsung Electronics and SK hynix employees are channeling record bonuses into housing, stocks and other assets. • Dongtan apartment prices have surged 16.3 percent in 2026, while nearly two-thirds of apartment types traded from June through Aug. 25 set record prices, highlighting how chip wealth is feeding property demand. • Luxury goods and imported cars are benefiting more than neighborhood businesses, with Dongtan department-store luxury sales up roughly 40 percent to 45 percent even as cafés, opticians and travel agencies report little improvement. • Economists say exceptionally large semiconductor bonuses behave more like investment capital than ordinary income, helping explain why Korea's chip windfall is lifting asset values without producing an equally broad Main Street spending boom. 2026-08-27 17:40:42 -
Nvidia admits memory squeeze, flags upside for Korean chipmakers SEOUL, August 27 (AJP) - Nvidia on Wednesday admitted that even the AI chip giant cannot escape the cost squeeze from the boom it helped ignite, as soaring memory prices lift production costs while benefiting Samsung Electronics and SK hynix from the supply crunch. The company reported second-quarter revenue of $96.2 billion for its fiscal 2027, more than doubling from a year earlier, as data center revenue jumped 117 percent to $89 billion. Nvidia forecast revenue of $108 billion, plus or minus 2 percent, for the current quarter, while giving a preliminary forecast for revenue to grow about 70 percent in fiscal 2028. Still, the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure is increasingly putting pressure on the memory supply chain. "We are experiencing extreme pricing conditions in memory," Nvidia Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress said during an earnings call Wednesday. "The magnitude of the price increase has exceeded our prior expectations and are headed even higher into next year," she said. The higher component costs are weighing on Nvidia's margins. The company expects its non-GAAP gross margin to fall from 75 percent in the second quarter to about 74 percent in the third quarter before bottoming at between 71 percent and 72 percent in the fourth quarter. Nvidia expects margins to recover to between 72 percent and 73 percent in fiscal 2028 as product price increases take effect. The comments offer a bullish signal for South Korea's Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, two of the world's largest memory chipmakers, as red-hot demand for high-bandwidth memory and other advanced memory products is expected to extend well through next year. Gartner recently forecast global memory revenue at $837.3 billion this year, nearly four times last year's $220.1 billion, before climbing above $1 trillion to $1.08 trillion in 2027. Memory's share of worldwide semiconductor revenue is projected to rise to 54 percent this year from 27 percent in 2025. In Seoul, shares of Samsung Electronics opened 2 percent and SK hynix 3.5 percent higher Thursday. Nvidia said the memory shortage itself is largely a consequence of accelerating AI infrastructure investment. "Memory scarcity today is being driven in large part by the AI buildout itself," Kress said, adding that Nvidia has "long-standing deep relationships with all three major memory suppliers" and is working with them to secure additional capacity required for its product roadmap. Nvidia did not identify the suppliers by name during the call. The world's three major DRAM suppliers are South Korea's SK hynix and Samsung Electronics and U.S.-based Micron Technology. Chief Executive Jensen Huang also stressed that supply, rather than demand, is becoming a key constraint on Nvidia's growth. Huang said demand for the company's computing systems is running well above the roughly 70 percent revenue growth Nvidia currently expects to deliver in fiscal 2028. "Our demand is much higher than that," Huang said, adding that Nvidia would need help from its "entire supply chain" to increase capacity. Nvidia expects supply to remain a bottleneck at least through the end of fiscal 2028. The company also highlighted its expanding ties with South Korean companies during the earnings call. Nvidia said Samsung Electronics is using its cuLitho computational lithography platform to achieve up to 20 times higher performance in computational lithography, a technology used to optimize complex semiconductor manufacturing processes. The company also cited LG and Hyundai Motor Group as partners working with Nvidia to build and scale AI infrastructure in South Korea. The strong outlook comes as Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin platform enters full production. Huang said AI has reached an inflection point where it is increasingly performing productive work and generating economic returns, fueling further demand for computing infrastructure. As AI agents and more sophisticated reasoning models require increasingly large amounts of computing power, Nvidia expects the global race to build AI infrastructure to continue. The company said supply constraints extend across its broader supply chain, including semiconductor manufacturing, memory, data center power and infrastructure, even as additional capacity comes online. AJP Takeaways Nvidia says extreme memory prices are squeezing margins, exposing a cost downside to the AI boom it helped create. Samsung Electronics and SK hynix stand to benefit as scarce HBM and DRAM supplies strengthen memory pricing power. Nvidia says demand is running ahead of supply, with bottlenecks expected to persist through fiscal 2028. 2026-08-27 09:30:36 -
Samsung doubles SSD speed as chipflation bites SEOUL, August 26 (AJP) -Samsung Electronics unveiled its next-generation portable solid-state drives Wednesday with twice the transfer speed of their predecessors, but the higher performance has a steep price amid skyrocketing consumer memory prices. The flagship P9 and mainstream P7 arrive as a broader bout of “chipflation” spreads from memory chips used in AI servers into consumer electronics. NAND flash, the memory technology used in solid-state drives, has remained undersupplied throughout 2026 as manufacturers prioritize fast-growing AI and data-center demand while keeping capacity expansion limited. Market researcher TrendForce expects NAND contract prices to rise another 10 percent to 15 percent in the third quarter. Samsung introduced the P9 and P7 at Gamescom 2026 in Cologne, Germany, with both adopting the high-speed USB4 interface. The products will roll out globally, including in South Korea, starting around the end of August and into September. The flagship P9 delivers sequential read speeds of up to 4,000 megabytes per second and write speeds of up to 3,800 MB/s, roughly twice the performance of Samsung's previous-generation T9. Samsung said the P9 is also the world's first 8-terabyte USB4 portable SSD capable of reaching 4,000 MB/s. It supports direct recording of 12K video and targets professional creators working with large RAW images and ultra-high-resolution footage. The performance gains, however, come as storage costs have moved sharply higher. The 1TB P9 carries a recommended price of 505,000 won ($357) in South Korea, more than three times the 165,000 won launch price of the 1TB T9 in 2023. The comparison is not like-for-like because the new flagship offers substantially higher speeds and a newer interface, but it illustrates how much further up the price ladder Samsung's premium portable storage has moved. The P9 is priced at 966,000 won for 2TB, 2.01 million won for 4TB and 4.01 million won for 8TB. The more mainstream P7 starts at 431,000 won for 1TB and reaches 3.40 million won for the 8TB model. The higher prices come against an unusually favorable market for memory producers. AI infrastructure investment has sharply increased demand for high-capacity storage, while NAND makers are directing more capacity toward higher-margin enterprise SSDs. TrendForce said cloud and server storage remain the main growth engine for NAND, while elevated component costs are already weighing on demand from consumer electronics makers. The industry's pricing power has therefore shifted markedly from the prolonged memory downturn that previously pushed NAND suppliers to cut production. For consumers, the result is an uncomfortable trade-off: faster storage is becoming increasingly useful as AI-generated content, high-resolution video and games swell in size, just as the chips needed to store that data become more expensive. The P7 is aimed at broader everyday use and is compatible with devices ranging from desktops and laptops to smartphones, game consoles and cameras. It has passed two-meter drop tests as well as shock and vibration durability testing. Both the P7 and P9 will be offered in 1TB, 2TB, 4TB and 8TB capacities. The price could prove a hurdle even among consumers already familiar with Samsung's storage products. “Samsung SSDs have a very strong reputation in Korea, and their quality is widely trusted, so I have high expectations for the new products,” said Kim, a Samsung user in his 40s. “But I'm concerned about how much the prices have gone up.” AJP Takeaways Samsung Electronics unveiled its P9 and P7 portable SSDs with USB4, with the flagship P9 delivering read speeds of up to 4,000 MB/s, about twice those of its predecessor. The new SSDs arrive amid “chipflation,” as AI and data-center demand keeps NAND flash supply tight and TrendForce forecasts another 10 percent to 15 percent rise in NAND contract prices in the third quarter of 2026. Samsung's 1TB P9 is priced at 505,000 won in South Korea, while the 8TB model costs 4.01 million won, highlighting the higher cost of premium consumer storage as the global memory market tightens. 2026-08-26 16:25:23 -
Samsung Display puts expandable OLED at center of Genesis GV90 SEOUL, August 26 (AJP) - Samsung Display is stepping up its push into automotive OLEDs, supplying Genesis' flagship GV90 electric SUV with an expandable center screen that grows by nearly 70 percent when the vehicle is parked. The display maker said Wednesday it has begun shipping two OLED panels for the GV90 this month, including a 24.6-inch center display and 13.2-inch screens mounted behind the front-seat headrests. At the center of the vehicle is what Samsung calls a Cinematic Display, which changes size depending on how the vehicle is being used. While driving, the screen remains at 23.6 inches to display navigation, driving and media information. Once parked, pressing a button on the center fascia raises the display by 90 millimeters, expanding it to 24.6 inches and providing about 1.7 times more screen area. The design highlights one of the advantages display makers are pitching as they seek to bring OLED technology deeper into vehicle interiors. Unlike LCDs, OLED panels do not require a separate backlight, allowing them to be made thinner and lighter. Samsung Display said its OLED panels are generally about 30 percent as thick and 70 percent as heavy as comparable LCDs, making them better suited to movable displays in space-constrained vehicle cabins. The GV90's center display has a 24:9 aspect ratio and a resolution of 3,840 by 1,440 pixels. It covers 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut and uses a tandem OLED structure, which stacks two organic light-emitting layers to improve brightness and lifespan. Samsung Display is also supplying two 13.2-inch OLED panels with 1,920-by-1,080 resolution for the backs of the front-seat headrests, allowing rear passengers to watch separate content or use the screens for functions such as video conferencing. The supply deal comes as display makers increasingly look to vehicles as another growth market for OLED technology, with larger and more sophisticated screens becoming a central part of premium vehicle interiors. Samsung Display has been expanding its automotive OLED business under its DRIVE brand, which focuses on design flexibility, reliability, safety and picture quality. "Samsung Display's OLED featured in the GV90 symbolizes how premium display technology and luxury mobility can come together to create a new experience," said Joohyung Lee, executive vice president and head of Mobile Display Business at Samsung Display. "Going forward, we will continue to build on the strengths of both companies to create new value for luxury mobility." AJP Takeaways: Samsung Display began supplying 24.6-inch and 13.2-inch OLED panels for Genesis' flagship GV90 this month. The centerpiece is an expandable OLED display that rises 90 mm when parked, increasing usable screen area by about 70 percent. The deal underscores Samsung Display's push to expand OLED beyond smartphones and other consumer electronics into premium vehicle interiors. 2026-08-26 14:37:41 -
Nvidia pushes AI beyond data centers as Korea ties deepen SEOUL, August 26 (AJP) - Nvidia is pushing its AI reach beyond data centers and deeper into South Korean manufacturing, expanding opportunities well beyond chipmakers as robots, factories and industrial systems increasingly adopt its computing platforms. The U.S. chip giant unveiled the Jetson Orin Nano 2, a compact robotics computer designed to run generative and physical AI workloads directly on edge devices such as autonomous robots, drones and vision systems. The new system delivers 78 trillion operations per second, or TOPS, of AI performance, with 8 gigabytes of memory and an eight-core Arm CPU. Nvidia said it offers twice the inference performance of the Jetson Orin Nano Super while retaining the same compact form factor. At a 15-watt power setting, the system can deliver performance comparable to its predecessor while consuming 40 percent less power, according to the company. Smaller and more efficient AI models are increasingly allowing workloads once confined to cloud servers to run directly inside machines operating in the physical world. "Today's small and medium-sized frontier models are achieving accuracy comparable to the largest frontier models from last year, enabling real-time intelligence on edge devices," said Deepu Talla, vice president of robotics and edge AI at Nvidia. The Jetson Orin Nano 2 is designed to run large language and vision-language models including Nvidia's Cosmos and Nemotron as well as open models such as Google's Gemma and Alibaba's Qwen. More than 3 million developers currently build on Nvidia's robotics stack, the company said. Cognex, South Korea's Doosan Bobcat, Matic and Alphabet-owned drone delivery company Wing are among companies either adopting or evaluating the system. Nvidia plans to make the Jetson Orin Nano 2 module and developer kit available in the first half of 2027. Nvidia's push beyond the data center is not limited to machines that move. Separately, the company said Perplexity's new Portable Computer AI agent can run locally on Nvidia's DGX Spark, bringing autonomous AI workloads onto a desktop-sized system. Portable Computer can connect to applications including Gmail, Google Drive, Slack and GitHub and perform tasks using locally hosted AI models. Users can switch to more powerful cloud models for complex workloads while keeping routine tasks and data processing on their own hardware. The system initially supports Qwen models optimized by Perplexity, with a version of Nvidia's Nemotron 3.5 Lightning expected to follow. Locally completed tasks do not consume cloud credits, while users are charged only for portions of a workflow routed to cloud models. Nvidia describes DGX Spark as a compact AI system aimed at developers and enterprise teams building and running autonomous agents locally. The company has increasingly positioned its desktop systems as an extension of the same computing architecture used in much larger AI factories. Taken together, the launches illustrate Nvidia's ambition to provide the computing layer for AI wherever it runs, from hyperscale data centers to desktop agents and autonomous machines at the edge. For South Korea, the expansion is broadening Nvidia's importance well beyond the semiconductor industry. An Aju Business Daily survey of the country's 30 largest business groups found that 14, or nearly half, now have direct or indirect business ties with Nvidia. Seven of South Korea's 10 biggest groups — Samsung, SK, Hyundai Motor, LG, Lotte, POSCO and HD Hyundai — are already connected to Nvidia across semiconductors, AI infrastructure, manufacturing and physical AI. The number rises to 12 among the top 20 groups with KT, LS, CJ, Kakao and Doosan, while Naver and Coupang bring the total to 14 among the top 30. The relationships increasingly stretch beyond Nvidia's traditional ties with chip suppliers. Samsung Electronics works with Nvidia across high-bandwidth memory and other AI semiconductor technologies, while SK Group is building an AI factory using Nvidia GPUs. Hyundai Motor Group is working with Nvidia on autonomous driving, robotics and manufacturing, and LG Group has expanded its partnership into robotics and AI factories. Lotte is pursuing cooperation in AI data centers, while POSCO is applying Nvidia technology to manufacturing operations. Other links span telecommunications, power infrastructure, logistics, cloud computing, shipbuilding, construction machinery and industrial automation. The widening network gives Korean companies access to one of the world's fastest-growing technology ecosystems. It also leaves a growing share of the country's industrial investment tied to a single U.S. computing platform. For Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, Nvidia's expansion into AI factories, robotics and edge computing could broaden demand for advanced memory and related components beyond conventional data centers. But the same trend makes both chipmakers more exposed to Nvidia's product road maps and the pace of investment across its AI ecosystem. The dependence is spreading further into manufacturing. As Korean companies build AI factories, autonomous production systems and industrial robots around Nvidia hardware and software, changes in Nvidia-led investment could increasingly ripple through sectors that once had little direct exposure to the GPU cycle. A slowdown in AI data-center or AI-factory spending could hit not only GPUs and memory but also power equipment, cooling, networking, industrial machinery and other infrastructure increasingly built around large-scale AI deployment. Nvidia's investment cycle is therefore becoming more relevant to a wider section of Korean industry. The strategy echoes comments Chief Executive Jensen Huang made during a visit to South Korea in June, when he identified robotics computing as one of Nvidia's next major areas of expansion. "Korea is the perfect place to do that," Huang told AJP at the time, referring to robotics computers, which he described as "the future, the next generation of AI." South Korea offers Nvidia an unusually broad industrial proving ground. The economy combines leading memory-chip makers with major automakers, machinery companies, electronics manufacturers and aggressive investment in robotics and factory automation. Samsung Electronics is building an AI factory using more than 50,000 Nvidia GPUs, while SK Group is developing an AI factory of a similar scale for semiconductor research, manufacturing and physical AI. Hyundai Motor Group is also working with Nvidia on a 50,000-Blackwell-GPU AI factory targeting manufacturing, autonomous driving and robotics. LG Group has separately expanded cooperation with Nvidia into robotics and AI factories, while Nvidia and SK Group in June broadened their partnership across AI infrastructure and next-generation memory. The Jetson launch pushes those relationships closer to machines themselves, with Doosan Bobcat among the companies evaluating the platform. Nvidia and Doosan have also been expanding cooperation across robotics, physical AI and AI-factory infrastructure. Yet Nvidia's financial engine remains overwhelmingly tied to the massive data centers powering the global AI boom. Its expansion into personal and physical AI is therefore a longer-term test of whether the computing ecosystem Nvidia established around GPUs can become the default platform for AI agents on desks and autonomous machines in factories, homes and cities. For Korean companies, Nvidia's expansion brings a parallel trade-off. The broader its platform spreads from AI factories into robots, vehicles and industrial machinery, the larger the potential market for Korean memory, equipment and manufacturing. The same expansion also ties more of Korean industry to Nvidia's technology, investment cycle and computing standards. Investors will get their next look at Nvidia's near-term growth engine when the company reports fiscal second-quarter earnings after the U.S. market closes Wednesday, or early Thursday in South Korea. Expectations for AI infrastructure spending remain high, keeping attention on whether demand for Nvidia's data-center platforms can sustain the investment boom even as the company builds its next growth markets beyond them. AJP Takeaways • Nvidia is extending AI computing beyond data centers into desktops, robots, drones and industrial systems, widening its reach across South Korean manufacturing. • Nearly half of South Korea's 30 largest business groups now have direct or indirect ties with Nvidia across chips, autos, robotics, power, cloud and factory automation. • Samsung Electronics and SK hynix stand to gain from broader AI demand, but their exposure to Nvidia's product road maps and investment cycle is also increasing 2026-08-26 14:14:44 -
LG pushes gaming monitors to 1,000Hz without sacrificing FHD resolution SEOUL, August 26 (AJP) - LG Electronics on Wednesday launched a gaming monitor capable of running at a 1,000Hz refresh rate while maintaining full-HD resolution, pushing display speeds further as competition intensifies in the premium gaming hardware market. The 25-inch UltraGear 25G590B is the world's first commercially available gaming monitor to natively support a 1,000Hz refresh rate at FHD resolution, according to LG. The company said the claim is based on gaming monitors available in the market as of May 19. A 1,000Hz refresh rate allows the screen to refresh up to 1,000 times per second, reducing visual lag and producing smoother motion in fast-paced games. The distinction is particularly relevant for competitive gaming, where some monitors have previously reached 1,000Hz through dual-mode settings that require users to reduce resolution or usable screen size to achieve the highest refresh rate. LG's new monitor instead maintains a resolution of 1,920 by 1,080 pixels at its maximum native refresh rate, targeting players of fast-moving titles such as first-person shooters. The monitor uses an IPS panel and includes LG's Motion Blur Reduction Pro technology, designed to improve the visibility of rapidly moving objects. It also offers AI-based picture optimization and spatial audio processing designed to identify directional sounds such as footsteps. LG has also reduced the size of the monitor's stand base by up to 49 percent compared with its 25G550B model, leaving more desk space for keyboard and mouse movement. The UltraGear 25G590B goes on sale in South Korea on Wednesday at 1.49 million won ($1,070) through LG's online store. The launch comes as demand for high-performance gaming displays continues to expand alongside the global esports market. IDC expects the global gaming monitor market to grow at an average annual rate of 6.4 percent through 2030, while South Korea's market is projected to grow by about 15 percent over the same period. LG's UltraGear ranked No. 1 in the domestic gaming monitor market by share in the first quarter of 2026, according to IDC data cited by the company. "This new product captures both of the key elements gamers want — refresh rate and image quality — and will set a new standard for gaming displays," said Lee Chung-hwan, executive vice president and head of LG Electronics' display business. 2026-08-26 10:37:31 -
Gartner estimate $1 trillion memory sales, aiding Korean chip stocks SEOUL, Aug. 25 (AJP) — South Korea's two chip bellwethers clawed back steep early losses Tuesday after Gartner forecast a memory boom lasting well into next year, giving investors a fresh reason to look past shareholder-return packages that have done little to restore their shares to June peaks. Samsung Electronics ended Tuesday flat at 257,000 won after losing more than 4 percent earlier in the session. The stock had plunged 8.7 percent Monday after its record shareholder-return plan fell short of elevated market expectations. SK hynix also closed nearly flat at 1,678,000 won, up 0.42 percent after sliding more than 6 percent in early trading. It had fallen 3.4 percent Monday. Both stocks initially tracked another retreat in U.S. semiconductor shares overnight as investors reduced exposure ahead of Nvidia's earnings and continued to reassess valuations across the artificial intelligence trade. The tone shifted as investors were relieved by Gartner's latest semiconductor forecast. The research firm in a report issued on Monday projected the global semiconductor revenue to jump 92 percent this year to $1.56 trillion from $809 billion in 2025 and reach $1.94 trillion in 2027, with memory being the main driver. Gartner forecast global memory revenue at $837.3 billion this year, nearly four times last year's $220.1 billion, before climbing above $1 trillion to $1.08 trillion in 2027. Memory's share of worldwide semiconductor revenue is projected to rise to 54 percent this year from 27 percent in 2025. DRAM revenue is forecast to surge 246.6 percent this year and NAND flash revenue 371.9 percent. Gartner expects supply to remain tight even as additional production capacity comes online in 2027 because AI infrastructure will continue absorbing more memory. "AI infrastructure has fundamentally changed the dynamics of the memory market," Gartner Director Analyst Shrish Pant said. The firm expects sustained high-bandwidth memory demand, rising memory content per AI server and continued data-center construction to support the market through 2027 and beyond. The outlook directly benefits Samsung and SK hynix, which together dominate global DRAM and high-bandwidth memory production while also operating large NAND businesses. It also provided a fundamental counterweight to a selloff that even unprecedented shareholder rewards have struggled to arrest. SK hynix last week approved a 40 trillion won ($28.6 billion) program to repurchase about 24.07 million shares, or 3.3 percent of its outstanding stock, between Aug. 20 and Nov. 19 and cancel all of them. The company also raised its shareholder-return target to more than 50 percent of cumulative free cash flow generated from 2025 through 2027. The announcement initially worked. SK hynix surged 12.7 percent the following day as the company's purchases created an immediate source of market demand and the planned cancellations promised to reduce its share count. The lift has proved insufficient to reverse the broader retreat. Tuesday's closing price remained 44.1 percent below the June 25 peak of 2,987,000 won. Samsung's package received an even colder reception. The company said Friday that shareholder returns for 2026 would total between 90 trillion won and 110 trillion won, including about 30 trillion won in cash dividends. It also authorized a 15 trillion won share buyback for employee compensation, while leaving the form of the remaining shareholder returns to a January 2027 board meeting. Investors had expected a large and immediate buyback-and-cancellation program similar to SK hynix's. Instead, much of Samsung's announced return consisted of cash dividends, which distribute money to shareholders but do not create direct buying demand or immediately reduce the number of shares outstanding. Samsung's ownership structure also makes aggressive cancellations more complicated. Large reductions in its outstanding shares could lift the combined ownership of Samsung Life Insurance and Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance above regulatory limits, one factor analysts have cited in explaining the company's more cautious approach to buybacks. Samsung shares are now 31.6 percent below their June 19 peak of 374,500 won despite the company's record earnings and its largest shareholder-return package ever. Foreign investors remained net sellers of both Samsung and SK hynix Tuesday, while retail investors continued to absorb shares, suggesting the Gartner forecast encouraged domestic bargain hunting without yet bringing overseas money decisively back into the two names. The rebound therefore did not erase the market's doubts. But Gartner's forecast shifted attention back toward the factor that ultimately matters more than even record buybacks and dividends: whether AI-driven memory demand can remain strong enough to sustain earnings into 2027. AJP Takeaways Samsung Electronics and SK hynix erased most of their early Tuesday losses after Gartner forecast global memory revenue would exceed $1 trillion in 2027. Gartner expects memory revenue to reach $837.3 billion in 2026 as AI data centers drive tight DRAM, NAND and HBM supply-demand conditions. Record shareholder-return programs have provided limited lasting support, with Samsung 31.6 percent and SK hynix 44.1 percent below their June peaks. 2026-08-25 15:39:06 -
SK hynix union rejects stock-heavy wage deal SEOUL, August 25 (AJP) -SK hynix union members on Tuesday narrowly rejected a tentative wage agreement that would have shifted a larger share of profit-sharing bonuses into company stock, sending labor and management back to the bargaining table as the chipmaker tries to spread its AI windfall across employees and shareholders while its shares remain well below earlier highs. The proposed 2026 wage and collective bargaining agreement was defeated with 50.08 percent, or 7,535 members, voting against it, the union said Tuesday. Another 7,510 members, or 49.92 percent, voted in favor. Turnout reached 93.81 percent, with 15,045 of the union's 16,083 members participating in electronic voting between Monday morning and 9 a.m. Tuesday. The razor-thin rejection came five days after SK hynix and the union reached a tentative agreement following two months of negotiations. The deal included a 6.3 percent wage increase but drew particular attention for a major change in how the company's profit-sharing bonus, known as PS, would be paid. Under the proposal, 40 percent of PS would be paid in cash, while the remaining 60 percent would be distributed in SK hynix shares. Of the stock portion, shares equivalent to 40 percent of the total bonus could be sold in the year of payment. The remaining 20 percent would be deferred over two years, with 10 percent distributed each year. For PS covering 2026 and scheduled to be paid early next year, employees would have been allowed to receive the immediately available 40-percent stock portion in cash instead, allowing them to take as much as 80 percent of the bonus in cash during the first year of the new system. The rejection sends both sides back into negotiations, with the structure of PS payments likely to remain the central issue. SK hynix has faced similar setbacks before. Tentative wage agreements were rejected by union members in both 2023 and 2024, forcing labor and management to reopen negotiations. The latest vote carries greater financial significance because the size of employee bonuses has ballooned along with SK hynix's earnings from high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, used in artificial intelligence accelerators. Last year's agreement removed the previous ceiling on PS and established a formula allocating 10 percent of annual operating profit to the bonus pool for 10 years. Under that framework, 80 percent of PS was to be paid in cash in the year of payment and the remaining 20 percent deferred over the following two years. The tentative agreement reached last week would therefore have moved employees much more heavily into SK hynix stock just as the company is seeking to align workers more closely with its long-term earnings and share-price performance. The vote also highlights the tension in that approach. SK hynix shares have been volatile despite booming HBM earnings and remain below their recent peak, making stock-based compensation more sensitive for employees accustomed to receiving most of their profit-sharing bonus in cash. A newly established unified union has separately made preservation of cash-based PS payments one of its priorities. The employee debate is unfolding alongside an equally aggressive effort by SK hynix to increase returns to shareholders. A day before the tentative labor agreement was announced, the company approved a record 40 trillion won ($28.6 billion) share buyback and cancellation program, the largest ever announced by a South Korean listed company. SK hynix plans to buy about 24.07 million shares, equivalent to roughly 3.3 percent of its outstanding stock, between Aug. 20 and Nov. 19 and cancel all of them. The company also raised its shareholder-return commitment, saying it plans to return more than 50 percent of cumulative free cash flow generated between 2025 and 2027 through dividends, buybacks and share cancellations. Its previous policy called for shareholder returns within 50 percent of cumulative free cash flow. Investors initially welcomed the move, sending SK hynix shares 12.67 percent higher to 1.69 million won last Thursday after a 9.75 percent fall in the previous session. Shares are down 5 percent Tuesday morning to 1,584,000 won, nearly halved from their June 25 peak of 2,987,000 won. The sharp swings have underscored how expectations surrounding the AI memory boom have become increasingly demanding even as SK hynix continues to report exceptional earnings. The company is juggling three competing claims on that cash generation: employee compensation, shareholder returns and tens of trillions of won in investment needed to expand HBM and advanced memory capacity. AJP Takeaways SK hynix union members rejected the tentative wage deal by just 25 votes, forcing labor and management back into negotiations. The main sticking point is a proposed shift in profit-sharing bonuses, with 60 percent to be paid in company shares rather than predominantly in cash. The dispute comes as SK hynix tries to distribute its AI-memory windfall among employees and shareholders while continuing heavy investment in HBM capacity. 2026-08-25 10:05:29 -
Nvidia meets Korea's would-be challenger Rebellions as AI chip lines blur SEOUL, August 23 (AJP) - Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has recently met with the head of South Korean AI chip startup Rebellions, bringing the world's dominant AI chipmaker face to face with a company built partly around offering an alternative to Nvidia-powered inference. A Rebellions official confirmed to AJP on Sunday that Huang and Rebellions co-founder and CEO Sunghyun Park had recently met. "The two recently met," the official said, adding that the company was still checking details of the discussions. The confirmation follows a Bloomberg report that the two executives met at Nvidia's headquarters in Santa Clara, California, to discuss a potential tie-up. The discussions are at an early stage and could range from a technology partnership and investment to a possible acquisition, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. There is no certainty that the talks will result in a transaction. The meeting is particularly notable given Rebellions' positioning in the rapidly expanding AI inference market. Founded in 2020, the South Korean fabless startup develops neural processing units, or NPUs, designed primarily to run AI models after they have been trained, a market gaining importance as generative AI shifts from model training toward large-scale deployment. Park has previously acknowledged Nvidia's entrenched position in AI training while setting an ambition for Rebellions to become a leading player in the "non-Nvidia" ecosystem. A potential partnership would therefore mark an unusual convergence between the industry's dominant incumbent and one of the Korean startups seeking to build an alternative AI computing architecture. Rebellions has grown rapidly since merging with Sapeon Korea, formerly SK Telecom's AI semiconductor unit, and has attracted backing from major Korean technology companies including SK hynix and SK Telecom. The company raised 640 billion won ($460 million) in a pre-IPO financing round in March at a valuation of 3.4 trillion won. The financing included 250 billion won from the state-backed National Growth Fund and 50 billion won from Korea Development Bank. The government backing could add another layer of complexity should discussions with Nvidia eventually move beyond technical cooperation or investment toward an acquisition. Rebellions was selected as the first direct investment recipient of the National Growth Fund, part of Seoul's broader effort to foster a globally competitive domestic AI semiconductor industry. The company is preparing for a Kospi listing, currently targeted for the first half of next year. The Nvidia talks also come as global technology companies increasingly look toward South Korea's emerging AI chipmakers. Meta previously explored an acquisition of Korean NPU developer FuriosaAI before talks ended without a deal, underscoring growing interest in inference-chip startups as Big Tech companies seek alternatives and complements to conventional GPU infrastructure. For Nvidia, the Rebellions meeting comes amid a broader expansion of its ties with South Korea's technology industry. Huang has held talks in recent months with leaders of Samsung Electronics, SK Group, Hyundai Motor Group, Naver and LG Group, with Nvidia expanding partnerships spanning semiconductors, AI infrastructure, robotics and mobility. Whether the latest meeting leads to cooperation, investment or something more remains unclear. For now, however, it puts one of Korea's most prominent would-be Nvidia alternatives into direct talks with the company it was built to challenge. AJP Takeaways: Rebellions confirmed that CEO Sunghyun Park recently met Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, while details of their discussions are still being checked. Bloomberg reported that early discussions could range from technology cooperation and investment to a potential acquisition, though no transaction is assured. Any deeper deal would be notable because Rebellions has positioned itself as a player in the "non-Nvidia" AI inference ecosystem and has received substantial backing from the Korean government. 2026-08-23 18:10:30 -
Korea's drinking culture loses its buzz as alcohol shipments hit 27-year low SEOUL, August 23 (AJP) - South Korea's alcohol shipments fell below 3 million kiloliters for the first time since the Asian financial crisis, as declining consumption and changing drinking habits continue to reshape a market long dominated by beer, soju and company gatherings. Domestic alcohol shipments totaled 2.988 million kiloliters last year, according to data from the National Tax Service's Tax Statistics Information Service, or TASIS. It marked the first time shipments fell below 3 million kiloliters since 1998, when the country was reeling from the Asian financial crisis and shipments stood at 2.922 million kiloliters. The latest figure represents a 21.5 percent decline from 3.804 million kiloliters in 2015. The contraction was particularly pronounced in Korea's two dominant alcohol categories. Beer shipments fell 7.2 percent from a year earlier to 1.519 million kiloliters, dropping below 1.6 million for the first time, while shipments of diluted soju fell below 800,000 kiloliters for the first time to 793,000 kiloliters. Takju, a category that includes the traditional Korean rice wine makgeolli, also declined for a fifth consecutive year to 318,000 kiloliters. The figures come as surveys point to a gradual shift in how Koreans consume alcohol. According to a 2025 alcohol industry survey by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corp., consumers drank on an average 8.8 days per month, down from 9.0 days a year earlier. Average consumption per drinking day edged down to 6.6 glasses from 6.7. At the same time, drinking is increasingly moving away from traditional group occasions toward more individualized consumption. Convenience-store purchases were cited by 85.5 percent of respondents as a major alcohol trend, followed by drinking at home at 54.2 percent, drinking alone at 52.2 percent and seeking a wider variety of flavors at 49.1 percent. That shift is creating pockets of growth even as the overall market contracts. Fruit wine shipments recovered to 17,000 kiloliters last year, while general distilled spirits reached 4,000 kiloliters, their highest level since 2015. Brandy shipments rose to 31 kiloliters, the highest since 2017. The diverging trends suggest South Korea's alcohol market is not simply shrinking, but becoming more fragmented as consumers drink less frequently while showing greater interest in where, how and what they drink. AJP Takeaways: South Korean alcohol shipments fell to 2.988 million kiloliters last year, slipping below 3 million for the first time since 1998. Beer and diluted soju both fell through historic shipment thresholds, while overall alcohol shipments have dropped 21.5 percent from 2015. Consumption is shifting toward home and solo drinking and a wider variety of products, with some categories such as distilled spirits growing despite the broader market decline. 2026-08-23 15:37:07