AJU PRESS - ASIA NEWS HUB

Journalist

Kim Dong-young김동영

ReporterSamsung Biologics, CJ CheilJedang, LG Chem, Celltrion, Naver, Krafton, Nexon, Hyundai Mobis etc. & energy, game, food, bio, petrochemical, AI

'Kim Dong-young is a bilingual journalist at AJU Press (AJP), covering Korean tech, energy, and bio/pharma.
He reports from the field at events like CES and APEC, runs AJP's YouTube channels,
and is pursuing a master's at Sogang's MOT program. "I try everything in this AI era that can improve yet preserve the facts. Journalism still serves as my core."

Latest by Kim Dong-young

Coupang fined record $409 million over massive data breach SEOUL, June 11 (AJP) - South Korea's privacy watchdog slapped e-commerce giant Coupang with a record 624.7 billion won (US$409.3 million) in fines over a data breach that exposed the personal information of about 37.5 million people, a penalty roughly equal to the company's entire operating profit last year. The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) imposed 423.6 billion won for the breach itself — the largest fine ever levied in the country for a single data leak — and a further 201.1 billion won for collecting the online activity records of about 11.17 million users without legal grounds. The combined penalty dwarfs the previous record of 134.8 billion won imposed on wireless carrier SK Telecom last year, and effectively wipes out the 679 billion won in operating income that New York-listed parent Coupang posted in 2025. The commission concluded that inadequate basic safeguards, including poor management of authentication signing keys and lax access controls, allowed a hacker — a former Coupang employee — to siphon off data from about 33.22 million member accounts and at least 4.33 million non-members. The tally exceeds by nearly 4 million the 33.67 million figure announced in February by a government-led joint investigation team, after the watchdog counted non-member individuals whose details were swept up through members' address books. The stolen data included the names and email addresses of about 33.05 million members, as well as 63.98 million delivery records belonging to at least 22.37 million members, containing names, phone numbers, home addresses and building entrance passcodes. Order histories of about 58,000 members were also leaked. The regulator additionally imposed a 16.8 million won administrative fine for delayed breach notification and decided to refer the company to investigative authorities, saying Coupang had hindered its probe. It ordered the company to strengthen safeguards, notify affected non-members and guarantee the independence of its chief privacy officer within three months. Coupang apologized for the incident but said it would challenge the decision in court once it receives the commission's written ruling. "We regret that proactive measures taken to prevent secondary damage and explanations based on clear facts regarding last year's data breach were not sufficiently reflected in the commission's decision," the company said in a statement, adding that it expects the facts to be clearly established through legal proceedings. PIPC chairperson Song Kyung-hee said at a briefing that the commission would respond aggressively to any litigation, calling the decision a reasonable one reached after thorough review based on law and principle. The breach, disclosed in late November, triggered an exodus of customers and a political firestorm in South Korea, prompting an emergency ministerial meeting and months of parliamentary scrutiny of the country's largest online retailer. Coupang has already set aside 1.69 trillion won in compensation vouchers for affected customers, a charge that pushed the company to a 354.5 billion won operating loss in the first quarter — its first quarterly loss since turning profitable in late 2022. The fine, which must be booked in the quarter it is imposed, makes a second consecutive quarterly loss all but inevitable. The penalty's scale stems from South Korea's revenue-linked fine system, under which the regulator can impose up to 3 percent of related sales depending on the gravity of violations. Coupang's Korean unit generated about 45.5 trillion won in revenue last year, far above SK Telecom's 17 trillion won. 2026-06-11 14:07:15
Naver launches local merchant AI campaign in Busan, timed to BTS concert SEOUL, June 11 (AJP) - Naver began rolling out its first "Local Ground" campaign in the southern port city of Busan, extending the AI-driven growth tools it built online to brick-and-mortar merchants in regional commercial districts. The inaugural campaign runs from Tuesday to Saturday and draws in 104 small and mid-sized stores across busy quarters including Jeonpo-dong, Yeongdo and the Bosu-dong secondhand bookstore alley, the company said. Naver is helping the shops adopt AI-based ordering and payment tools, among them QR ordering and an integrated offline terminal called Npay Connect, while also producing short-form video to showcase the merchants to visitors. The timing is deliberate. With BTS staging global concerts in Busan on June 12 and 13, Naver is sharpening features for foreign users, who can verify their identity with a passport to access its maps, reservation, ordering and payment services and translate storefront signs and menus through its Papago app. The company also held a "Local Meetup" on Wednesday, gathering about 200 staff and local business owners to discuss the role of regional diversity in the AI ecosystem and to share growth cases and AX strategies through its Place, shopping and advertising teams. "Busan is a dynamic city where its own character and culture breathe vividly through every neighborhood and alley," said Hwang Soon-bae, who leads Naver's Impact Synergy group, adding that it was all the more meaningful to launch Local Ground there. 2026-06-11 11:11:33
LG CNS, LX Pantos to deploy humanoid robots at logistics hub SEOUL, June 11 (AJP) - LG CNS and logistics firm LX Pantos have signed a memorandum of understanding to introduce humanoid and shuttle robots at a major distribution center, as South Korea's IT services industry accelerates its push into physical artificial intelligence. Under the agreement announced Thursday, the two companies will deploy an integrated robot automation system at LX Pantos' MegaWise Cheongna center. The setup envisions shuttle robots retrieving outbound goods from warehouse shelves while wheeled humanoid robots receive and load items onto automated sorting equipment before dispatch. LG CNS will train the robots using LX Pantos' logistics operation data, leveraging its PhysicalWorks Forge platform for robot learning and PhysicalWorks Baton for integrated fleet management. The humanoid hardware will draw on robots built by Dexmate — a Silicon Valley startup LG CNS invested in this past March. Park Sang-kyun, senior vice president and head of LG CNS's telecommunications and distribution services division, said the collaboration was "a proof-of-concept project applying diverse robots and learning and operations platforms to logistics environments," adding the company aims to raise productivity and operational efficiency at the site alongside LX Pantos. The two companies plan to open a tech driven logistics lab — a dedicated demonstration space for the automated workflow — in the second half of this year. They also intend to commercialize logistics robot solutions for external clients once the pilot matures. 2026-06-11 10:33:35
POSCO Holdings to test direct lithium extraction in US SEOUL, June 10 (AJP) - POSCO Holdings will build and operate a demonstration plant in the United States to extract battery-grade lithium more quickly and efficiently, the South Korean steelmaker said, marking the first such venture abroad by a Korean company. The company announced Wednesday it had agreed with Australian resources developer Anson Resources to construct the direct lithium extraction (DLE) demonstration facility in Green River, Utah, with POSCO overseeing design, construction and operation, and Anson supplying the site, infrastructure and brine. The plant is targeted for completion in 2027, with technical validation using actual brine to be finished by 2028, laying the groundwork for commercial production, POSCO said. DLE recovers lithium economically from low-concentration brine, offering higher recovery rates and shorter production times than conventional evaporation ponds. POSCO has been developing the technology since 2016. The project is the first overseas test of POSCO's proprietary process and a foothold for expanding its lithium business in North America, where automakers and battery firms are racing to secure supplies of the metal. "This demonstration is a strategic investment to secure next-generation technology early and seize the global lithium market," POSCO Holdings President Lee Ju-tae said, adding that the company would strengthen its competitiveness in North America and beyond. 2026-06-10 17:18:03
Kakao first-ever strike spares users but unnerves investors SEOUL, June 10 (AJP) - The chat platform through which most South Koreans communicate and work, along with its cab-hailing, payment and navigation services, operated normally Wednesday despite a four-hour walkout by about 600 workers, or roughly 15 percent of the workforce, near the headquarters of Kakao. The first strike in the platform operator's 20-year history left flagship services untouched but rattled investors, sending Kakao shares lower and exposing tensions that could complicate the company's push into artificial intelligence. Two days earlier, a very different scene had played out in Pangyo, often dubbed South Korea's Silicon Valley. Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang stood inside Naver's 1784 headquarters, linking arms with founder Lee Hae-jin and pledging to build gigawatt-scale AI infrastructure together. The two scenes, unfolding in the same week and in the same technology hub south of Seoul, highlighted the diverging fortunes of South Korea's twin internet giants as the AI race reshapes the country's technology landscape. Kakao's union staged a partial strike from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., including a one-hour lunch break, marking the first industrial action since the 2006 founding of IweLab, the predecessor to Kakao. Union members marched about 800 meters from Kakao's Pangyo office to a nearby building along Daewangpangyo-ro, condemning what they described as management failures and demanding stronger job security and a more transparent compensation system. The walkout followed the collapse of a second round of mediation at the Gyeonggi Regional Labor Relations Commission in late May, giving the union legal grounds to strike. Despite the protest, KakaoTalk, which serves about 40 million monthly users, as well as Kakao Map and Kakao Pay, continued to operate without disruption. The company said most core services are highly automated and that essential personnel remained on duty throughout the walkout. Investors nevertheless reacted cautiously. Shares of Kakao fell 3.4 percent to 38,150 won, while Kakao Games lost 1.28 percent to 8,510 won. KakaoBank ended 1.43 percent up at 24,750 won. Analysts said the lack of immediate service disruptions should not obscure longer-term risks. Automated systems can keep platforms running under normal conditions, but traffic surges, unexpected outages, major software updates and cybersecurity incidents still require rapid responses from experienced engineers. A prolonged labor dispute could also slow product development and delay new feature rollouts. The labor unrest comes at a delicate moment for Kakao as it seeks to reposition itself around AI. That challenge stands in stark contrast to the momentum enjoyed by rival Naver. During his visit Monday, Huang firmed up plans for a global AI factory centered on Naver's Gak Sejong data center. The facility is scheduled to begin operating with 55 megawatts of capacity in the first half of 2027 before expanding to 200 megawatts by 2028. "If this plan is realized, Naver will become a company 10 times bigger than it is today," Huang said, describing Naver as a cloud company with global-scale potential. Naver ranks as the 22nd-largest company on the benchmark KOSPI with a market capitalization of about 35 trillion won as of Wednesday. Kakao trails at 53rd place with a market value of around 16 trillion won. The Nvidia chief's endorsement capped a year of strong momentum for Naver. The company posted record annual revenue of roughly 12.1 trillion won ($7.9 billion) last year, driven by AI-related monetization and commerce growth. It also joined Nvidia's Nemotron alliance for open frontier AI model development. AMD chief executive Lisa Su visited Naver in March to deepen cooperation on graphics processing units. Kakao, too, enjoyed an AI-driven rally until growing employee discontent over compensation and restructuring began to overshadow the narrative. The company forged a strategic partnership with OpenAI in February last year and followed with a separate alliance with Google this year, betting that its unrivaled user base rather than infrastructure would be its pathway into the AI era. That strategy has shown early signs of traction. ChatGPT for Kakao, which integrates OpenAI's chatbot into KakaoTalk, attracted about 8 million users by the end of last year, roughly four times the level recorded a quarter earlier. Its partnership with Google, centered on the Kanana AI service within KakaoTalk, remains in the early stages. Industry observers say the differing partnerships reflect the strengths each company brings to the AI ecosystem. Naver's large-scale data center infrastructure has attracted chipmakers seeking computing capacity, while Kakao's daily interactions with much of South Korea's population appeal to AI model developers looking for distribution. Still, analysts argue Kakao's AI initiatives have yet to materially improve the metric that matters most for a platform company: user engagement. "For these services to meaningfully improve the user experience and stand apart from global rivals, agentic commerce must ultimately be realized, with the agent recommending products, taking the lead and completing transactions within the platform," said Lee Jun-ho, an analyst at Hana Securities. Chief executive Chung Shin-a, whose term was extended by two years in March, has promised to build an agentic AI ecosystem around KakaoTalk while targeting revenue growth of more than 10 percent and an operating margin of 10 percent this year. Yet Wednesday's walkout suggests her most immediate challenge may lie closer to home. Before Kakao can convince investors that its AI transformation will pay off, it must first convince the employees expected to build it. The labor dispute also appears far from over. Following Wednesday's rally in Pangyo, the union announced plans to stage a companywide "Log-off Day" on June 29, during which employees will simultaneously sign out of internal work systems as part of an escalating pressure campaign against management. While the first strike in Kakao's history left customer-facing services untouched, a prolonged standoff could increasingly affect development schedules, product launches and the company's ability to execute its AI strategy at a time when the gap with rival Naver appears to be widening. 2026-06-10 15:23:03
Seoul picks 15 firms in AI unicorn drive SEOUL, June 10 (AJP) -South Korea has selected 15 promising artificial intelligence and digital firms for a state-backed program aimed at turning them into globally competitive "unicorns," the science ministry said. The Ministry of Science and ICT presented Wednesday certificates to the chosen companies at a ceremony at the Lotte Hotel in Seoul, marking the seventh year of its ICT unicorn fostering program. Run with the National IT Industry Promotion Agency and partners including the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund, the Korea Exchange and Seoul Guarantee Insurance, the scale-up scheme has supported a cumulative 104 firms to date. An analysis of 45 companies that took part between 2023 and last year found they generated 15.4 billion won ($10.1 million) in overseas sales last year alone, up 40 percent from a year earlier. Their combined headcount rose 8.6 percent to 2,306, with about 58 percent of staff aged 34 or younger. This year's cohort spans AI, cybersecurity and digital health, and includes chip designer Rebellions alongside Neurocle, MoveAWheeL and Honeynaps. Many graduated from earlier ministry start-up initiatives such as the K-Global Project. Each firm will receive tailored support to enter two foreign markets, drawing on the ministry's overseas bases for customer outreach and investor matching, while the credit fund will offer working-capital guarantees of up to 5 billion won per company over three years. 2026-06-10 14:38:02
Kakao workers stage first walkout in company history over bonus dispute SEOUL, June 10 (AJP) - Kakao's labor union launched the first partial strike in the company's history, escalating a standoff with management over performance bonuses. The walkout ran from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. with an hour-long midday break on Wednesday, amounting to about four hours of stoppage. Union members marched through the company's Pangyo branch in Seongnam, south of Seoul. Workers at five entities — the main Kakao corporation, Kakao Pay, Kakao Enterprise, DKTechin and XLGames — joined the action after wage talks collapsed and mediation broke down. At the heart of the conflict lies the bonus structure, with the union demanding payouts worth about 10 million won, or 13 to 14 percent of last year's operating profit, while opposing the inclusion of restricted stock units. Management has argued the demands would place a heavy burden on the company's finances. Shares of Kakao traded at 38,450 won per stock at 10:20 a.m., 2.66 percent lower than the previous day. 2026-06-10 10:23:12
Kakao to stage first-ever strike as pay dispute deepens SEOUL, June 09 (AJP) - The labor union at Kakao, South Korea's dominant messaging and fintech operator, will hold its first walkout in the company's history, marking a turning point in a protracted dispute over performance-based pay. The action is the first since the founding of IweLab, Kakao's predecessor, in 2006, the union said. It comes after a second round of mediation at the Gyeonggi Regional Labor Relations Commission collapsed in late May, granting the union the legal right to strike. According to the IT industry, labor circles and police, the union will stage a partial strike of about five hours from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Wednesday and rally near Kakao's Pangyo office in Seongnam, south of Seoul. Members are expected to condemn what they call management failures and demand job security. With wage and collective-bargaining talks deadlocked, the union is also seeking an overhaul of a compensation system it says rewards executives while leaving rank-and-file pay opaque despite improving earnings. From 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., members will march about 800 meters from the Pangyo office to the U space building, around one kilometer away. The union initially notified police that some 2,000 members would gather from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., but officers estimate about 600 will turn out. Police plan to deploy one company of about 80 officers for traffic safety, anticipating a peaceful march. The walkout is unlikely to seriously disrupt flagship services such as KakaoTalk, used by about 40 million people monthly, or Kakao Pay, as essential staff remain on duty and core systems are automated. Analysts caution, however, that a prolonged strike could erode the company's ability to respond to sudden outages. The firm responded that it would keep services running, adding that it would establish the necessary response system. 2026-06-09 17:14:19
Pulmuone breaks ground on Korea's first land-based laver farm SEOUL, June 09 (AJP) - Pulmuone announced it had broken ground on South Korea's first research center for land-based cultivation of laver, or gim, at the Saemangeum national industrial complex, marking a push to commercialize a technology that could free the prized seaweed from the vagaries of the open sea. The center, built under a state project led by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, will serve as a testbed for growing laver on land year-round, the food company said Tuesday. The 9,473-square-metre site will house cultivation tanks, seawater treatment systems and research facilities in a single integrated complex. At its heart will sit a bioreactor system, billed as the largest of its kind in the country, that fine-tunes temperature, light and nutrients to yield a steady harvest regardless of season. The first phase focuses on core infrastructure, with a second stage to add processing and storage buildings and sharply expand tank capacity. Pulmuone has chased the technology since 2021, winning a marine farming license in 2024 and running pilot studies with 10-ton tanks in Taean, on the country's west coast. The company aims to weave production, processing and distribution into a single industrial chain anchored in Saemangeum. The firm plans to share its model with local fishers and buy up their entire harvest, building what it called a virtuous cycle of stable rural income and reliable raw material. Beyond output, it frames the venture as a hedge against climate shocks and a step toward restoring marine ecosystems. "The Saemangeum R&D center will be an important turning point for proving and industrialising land-based laver farming technology," said Ahn Deok-jun, head of food tech division at Pulmuone. 2026-06-09 10:06:45
For Nvidia CEO, South Korea is where story keeps turning SEOUL, June 8 (AJP) - In the early 2000s, as the story goes, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang walked the cramped aisles of Seoul's Yongsan electronics market himself, a then-obscure chip merchant doling out his business cards, courting the distributors who might stock his graphics cards. Just last weekend, he returned to the gaming world that first bought what he was selling — this time as the most courted man in artificial intelligence. The Nvidia CEO made his way to a PC parlor near Sinnonhyeon Station in southern Seoul on Sunday, his third such visit in a single trip, and met game developer Krafton's executive director Chang Byung-gyu and NCSoft CEO Kim Taek-jin in quick succession over the very games his cards were built to run. "Nvidia grew up together with you," Huang told the South Korean game executives, casting the country's studios as both the cradle of his company and a pillar of its AI ambitions. To Kim, he offered a smaller tribute: "You are my wingman." South Korea has earned the sentiment. Its gamers have bought more than 50 million GeForce GPUs over 25 years, Nvidia said last year, and the country has long served as a fast-moving testbed for nearly everything the company ships. But South Korea has dealt Huang sharp lessons too. In 2018, he flew to Seoul to propose a sweeping partnership with Samsung Electronics spanning high-bandwidth memory, contract chipmaking and his CUDA software platform. Samsung turned him down. Whatever the details, the cost has compounded by the year. Rival SK hynix rode HBM to the heart of the AI boom and became Nvidia's main supplier of the memory, while Samsung has spent the past two years scrambling to qualify its own chips and close the gap. Yet the warmest thread runs back furthest of all. At a GeForce 25th-anniversary event in Seoul last October, Huang told the crowd that a 1996 letter from the late Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee was the reason he had come — a remark that prompted the chairman's son, Lee Jae-yong, to reveal that his father had written it. If South Korea is where Huang's story keeps turning, its game makers now mark the latest bend. Long the biggest buyers of his chips, they are being recast as partners that build the lifelike virtual worlds in which the next generation of AI can be tested. The logic is straightforward. Years of running massive multiplayer servers, rendering vast virtual worlds and animating believable characters have left Korean studios with precisely the tools AI now demands — environments where agents, digital twins and physical-AI systems can be trained and proven before they reach the real world. Krafton, which co-developed a generative AI "co-playable character" with Nvidia, will roll out an AI companion called PUBG Ally as a beta in PUBG: Battlegrounds Arcade this month, building on the "Smart Zoi" agent in its life-simulation title inZOI. The technology lets a character converse and play naturally alongside a human user. "Krafton has come this far thanks to the fans who have stayed with Battlegrounds for so long," Chang said. "Building on our partnership with Nvidia, we will create new experiences not only in games but in AI." NCSoft, for its part, has seen its MMO shooter Cinder City tapped to headline Nvidia showcases at home and at Germany's Gamescom, chosen to flaunt the chipmaker's RTX and latest Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technology — a tool Huang recently called the most important innovation in graphics. The studio is putting the next-generation DLSS through its paces in Cinder City and its forthcoming Aion 2. On his first day in the country Huang headed straight for a PC parlor run by esports club T1 — the merchant who once worked Yongsan's aisles, back among the machines that started it all, in the one market that has never let him take success for granted. 2026-06-08 14:55:10