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

SK AX rolls out full-stack robotics service to build self-running factories SEOUL, July 09 (AJP) - SK AX announced it is launching a full-stack robotics service designed to steer South Korean manufacturers toward autonomous factories that can sense, decide and act on their own. The push, branded "Manufacturing RX" for robot transformation, aims to tackle chronic labor shortages and sagging productivity on factory floors by knitting robots, manufacturing execution systems and equipment data into a single, self-directing operation. SK AX's service spans the entire journey, from virtual vetting before a single robot is deployed to on-site autonomous control and plant-wide orchestration, with a digital twin first recreating floor plans. It later moves onto equipment layouts and material flows in a virtual space, running thousands of driving and task scenarios to flag collisions, bottlenecks and charging schedules in advance. Robots then run on physical AI built on a "vision-language-action" model, letting them read unexpected obstacles and adjust on the fly rather than repeat fixed motions. SK AX said it is already validating the digital-twin and robot-control systems in the semiconductor industry and is extending the projects into shipbuilding, with plans to widen the service to other sectors using proven pilot models. "The robot transformation of manufacturing is no longer about simply buying hardware but about the operational capability to keep robots running reliably and connected to the whole factory," said Kim Kwang-soo, head of SK AX's manufacturing service division, adding the company would help clients evolve into autonomous factories that never stop. 2026-07-09 09:33:23
The missing ingredient in Korea's AI cake: a foundation model SEOUL, July 08 (AJP) - "Seize this opportunity," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang exclaimed during his visit to South Korea last month, calling the country one of the few capable of owning the entire AI stack — from energy and memory to data-center infrastructure, AI models and applications. Huang may have overrated Korea. By almost every measure, South Korea is among the world's most enthusiastic adopters of artificial intelligence. Yet one crucial ingredient remains missing: a homegrown flagship foundation model. Generative AI reached 37.1 percent of Korea's working-age population in the first quarter of 2026, up from 25.9 percent in June last year, according to Microsoft's AI Economy Institute. The 43.2 percent increase was the largest among the countries surveyed over the period, far outpacing the roughly 19 percent rise in the United States. The institute said Asia is emerging as a major growth engine, with South Korea and several other economies recording rapid gains as AI tools become more useful in local languages and everyday workflows. "AI adoption continued to accelerate in Q1 2026, but the benefits are spreading unevenly. The Global North is pulling further ahead of the Global South, underscoring the need to address foundational gaps in electricity, connectivity, digital skills and local-language access," the institute said in its latest report. Korea's dependence on foreign frontier models became painfully tangible on June 12, when the U.S. Commerce Department abruptly blocked overseas access to Anthropic's newest models, Mythos 5 and Fable 5, citing national security concerns. Korean companies that had begun integrating the models into AI agents were forced to redraw development plans almost overnight. Although Washington restored access to vetted institutions on July 1, the episode served as a stark reminder that even a treaty ally can lose access to critical AI technology with little warning. For advocates of "sovereign AI" — the drive to build advanced models using domestic computing power, language and data — the incident transformed an industrial ambition into a strategic necessity. The government has since moved with unusual urgency. The Ministry of Science and ICT is reportedly discussing with the presidential office and fiscal authorities a plan to invest about 5 trillion won ($3.29 billion) from a semiconductor-driven tax windfall to secure roughly 10,000 of Nvidia's latest Vera Rubin GPU modules while launching an aggressive effort to bring leading Korean AI researchers back from overseas. The ministry has stressed that no final decision has been made. The proposal would mark a sharp departure from Seoul's current sovereign AI foundation-model program, which distributes only a few hundred GPUs to each of four teams — SK Telecom, LG AI Research, Upstage and Motif Technologies. Critics argue that spreading scarce computing resources so thinly leaves every participant too small to compete against frontier laboratories deploying tens of thousands of GPUs. Instead, the new proposal would concentrate all 10,000 GPUs on a single elite team capable of building a globally competitive model. "GPU is increasingly needed on a massive scale, but isn't the pace of securing it too slow?" President Lee Jae Myung said on June 26, urging lawmakers to lock related funding into the supplementary budget. South Korea is far from alone in its concerns. More than 60 countries have now published national AI strategies, while an increasing number — including France, India, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Japan and South Korea — have backed those strategies with dedicated computing infrastructure and state-supported foundation-model programs. France's Mistral AI, the UAE's Falcon, Saudi Arabia's HUMAIN and India's BharatGen each represent different approaches to the same objective: reducing dependence on foreign frontier models. Pressure is also mounting from China. Developers such as DeepSeek and Zhipu AI, themselves shut out of parts of the U.S. market, have been rapidly releasing increasingly capable open-weight models to capture global demand. The strategy weakens the case for relying exclusively on American AI while creating a different form of technological dependence. Underlying the race for chips and models is an even larger contest over infrastructure. Deputy Prime Minister and Science Minister Bae Kyung-hoon said on June 29 that countries worldwide plan to invest about $5.5 trillion, or roughly 8,400 trillion won, in AI data centers over the next five years. "Korea will invest 550 trillion won to build 8.4 gigawatts of AI data-center capacity by 2029 and attract more than 1,000 trillion won in total investment by 2035," Bae said. The infrastructure push dovetails with the country's biggest industrial gamble yet. Under the government's "three mega-projects" initiative, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix have pledged a combined 800 trillion won to build four next-generation memory fabs in the Honam region, shifting the center of gravity of Korea's power- and water-intensive semiconductor industry away from the Seoul metropolitan area. SK Group envisions building up to 15-gigawatt AI factories across the nation. James Ryu, president of SK AI Committee in an AI forum sponsored by the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea on July 2 argued Korea must evolve from a chip exporter to an AI token exporter to become an AI powerhouse. "We are selling the world's best memory chips while letting other countries build the token factories," he said. "In effect, we export components but import the finished AI product." He preached Korea must pursue five priorities to become a global AI token exporter: building gigawatt-scale AI factories, developing sovereign Korean foundation models, attracting global AI companies to operate AI factories in Korea, expanding domestic AI demand across healthcare, education, manufacturing and defense, and strengthening enabling technologies including power systems, cooling, HBM, CXL memory and advanced semiconductor packaging. Samsung SDS under Samsung Group also pursues the same vision with the plan to build a large AI data center at Solaseado in Haenam, South Jeolla Province, with construction scheduled to begin in the second half of this year. Officials acknowledge that securing sufficient electricity and industrial water will determine whether those ambitions become reality. The Honam semiconductor complex alone is expected to require roughly 650,000 tons of industrial water a day, while rebuilding Korea's AI talent pipeline remains an equally urgent challenge. Time, industry executives warn, is not on Korea's side. Frontier AI laboratories now release increasingly capable models at a breathtaking pace, narrowing the window for newcomers to catch up. Huang could be right that South Korea possesses many of the ingredients of an AI superpower. But it is yet to deliver the final layer where the greatest value is created: a globally competitive foundation model. Producing the world's best chips is no longer enough. The next race is to build the intelligence that runs on them. 2026-07-08 14:49:52
S.Korea's digital industry sales top $913 billion in 2024 SEOUL, July 08 (AJP) - South Korea's digital industry generated 1,378 trillion won ($913.6 billion) in sales in 2024, up 9.3 percent from a year earlier, as the rapid embrace of artificial intelligence reshaped the country's industrial landscape. According to figures released by the Ministry of Science and ICT on Wednesday, digital industry sales accounted for 15.2 percent of all industry sales of 9,038 trillion won and exceeded half of the country's total manufacturing revenue. Digital foundation industries, spanning telecom and information and communication technology equipment, led the way with 615.8 trillion won, a 15.6 percent jump driven by swelling global AI investment and buoyant semiconductor exports. Digital platform providers logged 152.4 trillion won, up 15.2 percent, with e-commerce, portals and content services proving the busiest fields. Firms relying on brokerage platforms earned 214.1 trillion won, though about 60 percent flagged the mounting cost of listing across multiple platforms as their biggest headache. Automation, however, remains nascent: while kiosk ordering has spread through lodging and restaurants, robot serving reached just 0.4 percent of businesses surveyed. "The fact that digital industry sales keep climbing by more than 100 trillion won every year shows that digital transformation is spreading vigorously across our industries," said Lee Do-gyu, the ministry's director-general for information and communication policy. "We expect this trend to accelerate further with the AI transition." The survey, conducted by the ministry and the Korea Information Society Development Institute, polled about 10,323 businesses nationwide over four months from September to December last year through online, telephone and in-person interviews. 2026-07-08 14:43:49
ESTsoft launches AI shopping assistant with CJ Olive Young SEOUL, July 08 (AJP) - ESTsoft, a South Korean AI service developer, announced it has launched a kiosk-based "AI Shopping Assistant" jointly with CJ Olive Young, one of the country's leading K-beauty retailers. The service will debut first at three Seoul stores popular with foreign tourists: the Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station, Apgujeong Jungang and Ewha Jungang branches. The assistant is built on ESTsoft's real-time conversational AI avatar platform, Perso Interactive, and has been tailored specifically for K-beauty retail. It primarily targets foreign shoppers in their 20s and 30s, engaging customers through an AI avatar that communicates in eight languages. Key functions include language-barrier-free avatar service in eight languages, AI-driven product recommendations, barcode-based multilingual product information, automated handling of routine inquiries such as tax refunds, and a data dashboard tracking dwell time and customer behavior. For the recommendations, ESTsoft paired its in-house engine, AURA, with tens of thousands of Olive Young product listings to match customers by skin concerns, texture preference and intended use. Multilingual support emerged as the most requested feature in an internal survey of Olive Young staff, in which about 69.4 percent reported facing language barriers with customers and 54.8 percent said interpretation support was necessary. "This is meaningful because it allows us to resolve the language barrier issues that global retail stores face with overseas customers, while also contributing to improved store performance," said Chung Sang-won, chief executive of ESTsoft. An ESTsoft official told AJP that the company could not yet disclose any further expansion plans, citing confidentiality. 2026-07-08 10:38:15
Kakao expands AI assistant's place recommendation, booking features SEOUL, July 08 (AJP) - Kakao announced that it has upgraded the place recommendation and booking functions of its AI assistant, Kanana in KakaoTalk, broadening the service well beyond its original restaurant focus. The update revealed Tuesday extends Kanana's reach into tourism and lodging, exhibitions, performances and cinemas, as well as everyday conveniences such as gas stations, convenience stores and auto repair shops, the company said. Users can now chat with Kanana about weekend plans or gatherings and receive context-appropriate suggestions, then explore, share and book venues within the same conversation. A discussion about weekend activities, for instance, can prompt Kanana to suggest exhibitions, pop-up events and nearby outings. When a visit to a particular area is registered with Kanana, its daily morning briefing adds details such as nearby restaurants, parking and menu information, and the assistant also proposes likely follow-up questions. Kakao plans further updates that would bring the multi-category recommendations of Kanana in KakaoMap to Kanana in KakaoTalk, letting the assistant bundle lodging, sightseeing and dining suggestions for trips such as an overnight getaway, and is reviewing a feature to map time-based itineraries through KakaoMap. The company said it intends to deepen ties with internal services while expanding external partnerships. "We will gradually expand agentic AI that interprets user intent and judges and combines the necessary functions on its own, moving beyond search that simply answers questions," said a Kakao spokesperson. 2026-07-08 08:32:50
Npay launches venture capital investment platform to boost 'productive finance' SEOUL, July 07 (AJP) - Npay, Naver's fintech arm, unveiled a new venture capital investment platform, aiming to bridge the gap between promising startups and investors and channel more "productive finance" into South Korea's capital markets. The service, called Npay Startup, was launched Tuesday at a ceremony at Naver's 1784 headquarters in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, with officials from the Financial Supervisory Service and the venture investment industry in attendance. The project brings together three players in the venture capital ecosystem — capital providers such as securities firms, fund operators including venture capital firms and new technology financiers, and startups themselves — on a single system. It was jointly developed by the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, and Npay. Under the new system, investors post funding notices and compare standardized proposals, while fund operators can browse every notice in one place instead of submitting repetitive paperwork. Startups upload investor-relations materials directly, and artificial intelligence tools summarize key points and generate searchable company pages, which also appear in Naver's search results. "We hope this platform becomes core infrastructure linking innovative companies with investors and revitalizes productive finance," Lee said, adding that he expects wider industry participation to energize the venture capital market. Npay Startup will run as a pilot for about three months before Npay expands its verification systems and onboards more institutions. 2026-07-07 17:30:18
The great shortfalls in the grand Honam chip project SEOUL, July 07 (AJP) - The devil is in the details, and South Korea's mammoth plan to create a second chipmaking epicenter in the industrially neglected southwest is drawing skepticism not only because of its astronomical 800 trillion won ($523 billion) price tag, but also because of the critical shortfalls money alone cannot solve. Samsung Electronics and SK hynix have announced plans to build two next-generation fabs each in the Honam region, investing 400 trillion won apiece in what President Lee Jae Myung's government has framed as both an answer to surging AI memory demand and a correction to decades of lopsided regional development. Lee vowed to personally oversee the project through a dedicated office within the presidential administration. The initiative reflects Korea's strategic pivot south as the capital region runs out of land to support the country's AI-driven industrial expansion. Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang, during his visit to Seoul in June, described the Saemangeum reclamation zone on Korea's southwest coast as the country's future "AI Valley" and said he would welcome building an Nvidia data center there, joining Hyundai Motor Group's 9 trillion won plan for an AI data center and robotics cluster. Yet the region's headline advantages — cheap land, surplus electricity and abundant water — all come with caveats that echo the very bottlenecks that delayed the Yongin semiconductor cluster. Water on paper, scarcity in the models The climate and energy ministry said on June 30 it would secure 650,000 tons of industrial water a day for the new fabs by reallocating supplies from five existing dams, including raising Dongbok Dam, converting hydropower water from Boseonggang and swapping Naju Dam's agricultural allocation for river water. Another 300,000 tons of recycled wastewater from Gwangju would serve as emergency backup. Climate Minister Kim Sung-hwan said the government would "supply the 6.3 gigawatts of power and 650,000 tons of water the southwestern fabs need without disruption, and prepare additional water and electricity in advance." The ministry's own planning documents, however, urge caution. Its basin management plan for the Yeongsan and Seomjin rivers projects annual shortages of roughly 71 million tons and 50 million tons, respectively, of household and industrial water by 2030 under a once-in-50-years drought scenario, with deficits widening further as climate change intensifies. Some experts estimate total demand could approach one million tons a day once all four fabs are operating around 2030 — a figure Kim insists can ultimately be met by the region's seven dams. History suggests the harder constraint is not engineering capacity but local consent. SK hynix's Yongin cluster saw its water supply delayed by roughly 18 months after Yeoju, which controls the intake point, withheld permits until compensation terms were agreed. The project ultimately took six years to move from announcement to groundbreaking. Honam's plan likewise requires changes to agricultural water allocations and hydropower operations, both of which will require agreement from farmers and local communities. Plenty of electrons, not enough wires Electricity generation is the region's strongest advantage. South Jeolla's power self-sufficiency reached 215 percent in 2025, according to Korea Electric Power Corporation, with the province estimating an annual surplus of about 38 terawatt-hours. The Hanbit nuclear complex and planned offshore wind farms underpin that surplus. The grid, however, remains the bottleneck. All 164 substations across Honam have been designated saturated "grid-managed" facilities, effectively restricting new power connections until the end of 2031. Since mid-2025, authorities have permitted limited new connections totaling about 2.3 gigawatts, but only for operators willing to accept first-priority curtailment. Building new transmission lines faces the same political resistance that once slowed Samsung's Pyeongtaek expansion. The Sinjangseong substation in Jangseong County, a key link connecting offshore wind farms to the planned fabs, is scheduled for completion in September 2027 after years of local opposition. Meanwhile, the county council has formally opposed a proposed 345-kilovolt transmission line running through the county toward Jeongeup. The government's solution is an "energy highway" — accelerating transmission corridors linking Honam to the capital region, advancing key projects to December 2030, while adding west coast undersea high-voltage direct-current cables and introducing a new renewable-energy bidding system in Honam this year. Industry officials nevertheless say reliable 24-hour electricity will still require LNG backup generation and large-scale battery storage, much as planned for Yongin — an approach that has already drawn environmental opposition elsewhere. "The 215 percent self-sufficiency figure should be interpreted cautiously," said Park Hae-kyun, professor of energy engineering at Kyungpook National University. "Renewable output fluctuates with weather conditions, so maintaining stable baseload power around the clock will require a broader generation portfolio and secure dispatchable sources." In one sense, the fabs also solve the grid's problem. Kim noted that electricity generated in Honam could finally be consumed in Honam instead of being transmitted north. The people problem The scarcest resource may ultimately be engineers. The Korea Semiconductor Industry Association projects a shortage of roughly 54,000 semiconductor workers by 2031, while most experienced talent remains concentrated in the capital-area clusters of Hwaseong, Pyeongtaek and Icheon. Honam currently has only one semiconductor contract department, at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology. Reports say Samsung and SK hynix are discussing establishing contract semiconductor programs with Seoul National University and regional national universities. Labor Minister Kim Young-hoon has described skilled workers as one of the project's most important resources, pledging expanded training centers and polytechnic programs across the region. Supporters argue the investment could help absorb unemployed local youth, with Gwangju and North Jeolla recording youth unemployment rates above the national average last year. Yet many of the engineers capable of operating advanced fabs will still need to relocate from the Seoul metropolitan area. Korea's recent experience with government-led relocation offers a cautionary precedent. HMM's headquarters relocation to Busan triggered months of union resistance and strike threats over concerns of large-scale resignations, passing a shareholder vote only after management agreed to a phased relocation without forced transfers. The Honam semiconductor project is likewise government-driven. Whether thousands of engineers and hundreds of suppliers are willing to follow the fabs south — rather than view the assignment as exile — remains an unanswered question. Meanwhile, the region's demographic base continues to shrink. Gwangju and South Jeolla, which this month launched an integrated special city with a combined population of about 3.17 million, recorded a youth employment rate of 39.3 percent, compared with the national average of 44.4 percent. Reports indicate the city lost roughly 8,700 residents aged 19 to 39 last year alone, while Gwangju's youth population has fallen about 2.4 percentage points over the past five years. The newly established Jeonnam-Gwangju Integrated Special City aims to begin construction in the first half of next year and complete its first fab within four years. Yongin, by comparison, required six years simply to begin excavation. Whether Honam can compress that timeline — while securing water rights, expanding the grid and persuading engineers to relocate — will determine whether the southwest's chip dream solidifies into silicon or remains another ambitious blueprint. 2026-07-07 15:57:27
S.Korea launches support center to boost domestic AI chip adoption SEOUL, July 07 (AJP) - South Korea's science ministry opened a dedicated support center aimed at helping local companies adopt domestically made artificial intelligence chips, part of a broader push to strengthen the country's semiconductor industry. The Ministry of Science and ICT said Tuesday the technical support center for AI and semiconductor held its opening ceremony in Gangnam, southern Seoul, at the Korea Association for AI & ICT Promotion. The government has designated domestic AI chips, known as neural processing units, as a core technology underpinning its megaproject unveiled last month, which spans semiconductors, physical AI and AI data centers. The new center will offer consulting, in-depth sector-specific advice, testing and verification support, software optimization after installation, and networking between chip suppliers and prospective buyers, according to the ministry. It will also work with the Physical AI Alliance, which includes the Korea Fabless Industry Association, to identify demand for domestic chips in physical AI applications. "The core competitiveness of domestic AI semiconductors lies in low power consumption and cost efficiency," said Ryu Je-myung, second vice minister at the science ministry, adding that the fast-growing inference chip market presents "an important opportunity for our companies." 2026-07-07 14:36:02
Naver, KAI join forces on Korean defense AI platform SEOUL, July 07 (AJP) - Naver and cloud affiliate Naver Cloud, collectively known as Team Naver, have agreed to build a domestically developed defense artificial intelligence platform in partnership with Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI), the companies said. The three firms signed a strategic memorandum of understanding on aerospace and defense AI cooperation on Monday at KAI's headquarters in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang Province. Naver chief executive Choi Soo-yeon, Naver Cloud chief executive Kim Yu-won and KAI president and chief executive Kim Jong-chool attended the signing ceremony. Under the pact, the companies plan to jointly develop a foundation AI model tailored to the defense sector, drawing on Team Naver's AI and cloud capabilities alongside KAI's systems-integration expertise. The effort is aimed at securing sovereign defense AI, reducing reliance on foreign technology and expanding Korea's homegrown defense AI ecosystem. Priority areas include autonomous drone flight, unmanned mission execution and an integrated AI platform for future combat systems, to be developed in tandem with KAI's Next-generation Air Combat System, which links manned and unmanned fighter jets with satellites and other battlefield assets. The companies also intend to jointly pursue government-led national research and development projects and block-funding programs, and to embed AI into manned-unmanned teaming and other future aerospace platforms to raise autonomy levels. "We will do our utmost to combine Team Naver's advanced AI capabilities with KAI's defense infrastructure to strengthen South Korea's technological sovereignty in national defense," Choi said. 2026-07-07 10:19:09
Seoul weighs tax breaks for SMRs to power Yeongnam industrial push SEOUL, July 03 (AJP) - South Korea's government said it is reviewing tax incentives, including possible designation of small modular reactors (SMRs) as a national strategic technology, to support a sweeping industrial buildout in the country's southeastern Yeongnam region. The plan, unveiled Friday at a public briefing at Gyeongsang National University in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province, centers on three mega-projects: semiconductors, artificial intelligence data centers and physical AI, alongside support for shipbuilding, automobiles, aerospace, defense and energy. Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol said the shift reflects a broader strategic recalibration. "In this winner-take-all, hyper-competitive global order, the real battleground lies not in the oversaturated capital region but in the regions," Koo said, adding that the government would swiftly detail its "five growth poles, three special zones" engine strategy. To back the investment drive, the government will introduce a new domestic production tax credit and consider granting SMRs national strategic technology status. It also plans an investment firm for the southeastern region and new state-run industrial complexes, alongside deregulation through a proposed Yeongnam mega special zone. Under the plan, Yeongnam is positioned as a hub for next-generation semiconductors and materials, parts and equipment, complementing chip production in the capital region and packaging operations in central Chungcheong Province. About 2 gigawatts of AI data center capacity is planned for the region, including a 1-gigawatt facility in Ulsan — described as the country's first of that scale. The government also aims to build a robotics innovation corridor linking Gumi, Pohang, Daegu and Changwon, with new research funding for actuators, sensors and other core robot components. It is targeting a top-three global ranking in robotics and top spot in physical AI within five years. On energy, the plan includes construction of what officials called the world's first dedicated SMR production plant, along with investment in gas turbines and offshore wind, as part of a broader green energy transition effort. 2026-07-03 17:06:28