Journalist

Lee Hugh
  • Broadcaster Choi Seon-gyu Recalls Saving His 3-Year-Old Daughter After Truck Crash
    Broadcaster Choi Seon-gyu Recalls Saving His 3-Year-Old Daughter After Truck Crash Announcer-turned-broadcaster Choi Seon-gyu has recounted a past traffic accident involving his daughter. On Feb. 10, the YouTube channel CGN posted a video titled, "Please save our daughter." Choi said he learned only after finishing a live broadcast that a note had arrived more than two hours earlier saying his daughter had been taken to the emergency room at 9:50 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 26, 1992. He said the note read, "Daughter in traffic accident, life in danger. Kangnam Sacred Heart Hospital ER." He added that she was the first daughter born in his family in 35 years. Choi said a truck backing up did not see the child, ran over her with a rear wheel and then, after the driver felt something, moved forward and ran over her again. He said she vomited a large amount of blood and was pronounced dead at the scene. He said the child’s mother pulled her from under the vehicle and rushed her to the emergency room before contacting him. Choi said traffic was stopped for about an hour because of nearby construction as he tried to pass Yeongdeungpo Rotary, leaving him unable to do anything. He said that when he arrived at the hospital, his daughter was covered with a white sheet. He said he held her and cried alone for about an hour, then felt warmth from her body. Choi said no medical staff helped when he pleaded for her to be saved. He said he thought something was lodged in her throat, put his hand in her mouth and removed a large blood clot, after which her breathing returned. He said she was then admitted to the intensive care unit and spent the next two years in the hospital, entering at age 3 and being discharged at age 5.* This article has been translated by AI. 2026-02-10 16:51:00
  • The next big chip from Korea – flash successor to HBM: KAIST expert
    The next big chip from Korea – flash successor to HBM: KAIST expert SEOUL, February 10 (AJP) - High-bandwidth memory (HBM) has powered the current AI boom, but soaring costs and capacity limits are shifting attention to what comes next. The next big chip to come from Korea's memory powerhouse will be flash-based successor designed for the inference-heavy phase of AI, according to a chip expert. “Now is the time to move beyond HBM. The era of high-bandwidth flash is coming — and it will unfold within the next decade,” Kim Jung-ho, a professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), said Tuesday during a livestreamed session hosted by the KAIST Tera Lab, which he leads. Kim’s forecast reflects a growing industry concern that memory — not compute — is becoming the primary bottleneck in scaling next-generation AI systems. As large language models expand and inference workloads multiply, the challenge is no longer just faster processors, but how much data can be stored close enough to feed them efficiently. At the center of the problem is the explosive growth of so-called key-value (KV) caches — temporary memory that stores intermediate data during AI inference in transformer-based models. These caches expand rapidly with longer context windows, pushing HBM to its practical limits in both capacity and cost. HBM functions as ultra-fast “working memory” placed next to GPUs, but its capacity growth has lagged behind model demands. According to publicly available specifications from Nvidia, the H100 accelerator carries 80 gigabytes of HBM, while the H200 offers 141 gigabytes. Industry tracker TrendForce estimates the upcoming Blackwell-based B200 will reach roughly 192 gigabytes, with the next-generation Rubin platform expected to approach 288 gigabytes. Even those increases fall short. A single modern AI model — once intermediate data is included — can already consume hundreds of gigabytes of memory. Running a 70-billion-parameter model such as Llama-3 in FP16, for example, requires about 140 gigabytes just for model weights. When long-context inference is added, memory demand quickly exceeds what a single GPU can supply, limiting batch size and the number of users that can be served concurrently. The strain is more acute in transformer architectures, where KV caches scale linearly with context length. For a 70-billion-parameter model, KV cache requirements are estimated at roughly 45 to 64 gigabytes for a 128,000-token context window. At the million-token scale, that figure swells to roughly 327 to 512 gigabytes — two to three times larger than the model weights themselves. For 400-billion-parameter-class models, supporting million-token contexts would push memory needs into the terabyte range, far beyond today’s HBM-only configurations. “This is why performance is no longer determined by compute alone,” Kim said. “Once decoding begins, throughput becomes memory-bound. Capacity matters as much as bandwidth.” To bridge that gap, Kim argues that the industry will need high-bandwidth flash (HBF) — a stacked, NAND-based memory technology designed to offer far larger capacity than HBM while delivering much higher bandwidth than conventional storage. Rather than replacing HBM, HBF would serve as a complementary tier within a hierarchical memory system. Kim likens the relationship to a workspace: HBM is “the bookshelf next to your desk,” optimized for speed but limited in size, while HBF functions as “the library,” holding bulky data such as KV caches and long-context inputs that can be streamed back to the GPU when needed. The push toward longer context windows is already visible across the AI industry. Google’s Gemini 1.5 supports up to one to two million tokens, Anthropic’s Claude models target 200,000 to one million tokens, and Meta has signaled even longer contexts for future Llama models. Combined with retrieval-augmented generation and agent-based AI that accumulates session history, such workloads dramatically expand memory footprints. From a performance standpoint, HBM3e delivers roughly 1.2 terabytes per second of bandwidth per stack with latencies measured in tens of nanoseconds — but at a steep cost per gigabyte. Enterprise-grade solid-state drives, by contrast, offer only 10 to 30 gigabytes per second and latencies in the tens of microseconds, albeit at much lower cost. HBF aims to occupy the middle ground, targeting hundreds of gigabytes per second with microsecond-level latency, making it suitable for tiered AI memory architectures. Industry engineers increasingly expect future AI servers to adopt such layered designs, combining HBM, conventional DRAM and flash-based memory pools through high-speed interconnects such as CXL. In that setup, Kim said, HBM would remain dominant for latency-critical tasks, while HBF would emerge as the backbone for long-context and large-scale inference. “The question is no longer whether we need more memory,” Kim said. “It’s how we restructure the memory system itself. In the AI era, memory is becoming the real factory floor.” For memory makers, the shift opens a new front in the AI arms race — not only in faster chips, but in how much data those chips can store and move. 2026-02-10 16:29:07
  • Four players ejected after fight breaks out in Pistons-Hornets game
    Four players ejected after fight breaks out in Pistons-Hornets game A fight broke out on an NBA court.  The Detroit Pistons played the Charlotte Hornets in a 2025-2026 NBA regular-season game at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Monday (Korean time).  The altercation erupted midway through the third quarter after Detroit’s Jalen Duren was fouled while driving to the basket. Duren and Charlotte’s Moussa Diabate went forehead-to-forehead, and Duren shoved Diabate in the face. Diabate then threw a punch at Duren after breaking through teammates trying to hold him back.  Charlotte’s Miles Bridges followed with a left-handed punch at Duren. Detroit’s Isaiah Stewart ran onto the court and clashed with Bridges, grabbing him by the neck and throwing several punches.   Arena security and police were brought in as the situation escalated. After order was restored, officials ejected Duren, Stewart, Diabate and Bridges.  Midway through the fourth quarter, Charlotte coach Charles Lee was also ejected after strongly protesting a call and moving toward an official before being restrained. Lee later said, “As emotions ran high, the situation grew out of control.”  Detroit won 110-104. * This article has been translated by AI. 2026-02-10 16:26:34
  • IBK Industrial Bank CEO Blocked From Office as Union Presses Pay Dispute
    IBK Industrial Bank CEO Blocked From Office as Union Presses Pay Dispute Jang Min Young, CEO of IBK Industrial Bank of Korea, has been unable to enter his office for 19 days since his appointment because of union opposition. Blocking a new CEO’s first days at work has repeatedly occurred at the state-run bank, but this time the union says it will keep Jang out until he brings back a solution with financial regulators over overtime pay. The standoff has raised concerns in the financial sector that a leadership vacuum could drag on.  Jang arrived at the bank’s headquarters in Seoul’s Euljiro area at about 8:35 a.m. Monday but turned back after a five-minute confrontation with union members who blocked the entrance.  Union members shouted, “Don’t come back until you bring an answer on an exception to the total wage cap.” The union argues that the wage-cap system has replaced overtime pay with compensatory leave, but limits on actually using that leave amount to unpaid wages. The bank has been discussing with the Financial Services Commission a plan to pay 78 billion won in unpaid overtime in long-term installments, but the union opposed it, saying, “Why take dividends all at once while splitting up compensation for employees’ overtime?”  Jang said the wage-cap issue “is something the president ordered, and I, too, am someone appointed by the president,” adding, “I will communicate and resolve it quickly, so I ask you to wait.”  As he left, Jang told reporters he has repeatedly urged the commission to allow an exception “considering IBK’s special circumstances,” and that “a broad consensus is forming.” He said the blockade is disrupting normal operations and asked the union to allow him to work while negotiating with the government.  The union’s efforts to block a new CEO are not new. Citing weaker benefits than commercial banks and what it calls “parachute” appointments, past CEOs have followed a familiar pattern: appointment, union opposition and then a compromise.  Yoon Jong Won entered the headquarters office 27 days after taking the job in 2020, after promising the union greater transparency in selecting executives, a resumption of voluntary retirement programs and more flexible leave periods. In 2022, when Jung Eun Bo, then head of the Financial Supervisory Service, was floated as a CEO candidate, the union launched a blockade campaign, calling it a parachute appointment. After that backlash, Kim Sung Tae, an internal candidate, was ultimately selected. Similar protests also occurred when outside candidates such as Kim Jong Chang and Yoon Yong Ro were chosen.  If no agreement is reached by this week, before the Lunar New Year holiday, Jang is expected to set a record for the longest period a CEO has been blocked from work. A financial industry official said IBK’s role has become especially important under the current government in areas such as balanced regional development and advanced strategic industries, and that decisions such as large-scale fund investments cannot be made unilaterally by working-level staff, making Jang’s return to normal management urgent. * This article has been translated by AI. 2026-02-10 16:25:24
  • BYD Korea to Offer Free Vehicle Inspections at 17 Service Centers for Lunar New Year
    BYD Korea to Offer Free Vehicle Inspections at 17 Service Centers for Lunar New Year BYD Korea said Monday it will run a Lunar New Year free inspection campaign to help drivers prepare for holiday travel. The campaign will be held over eight days at 17 BYD Auto service centers nationwide: three days before the holiday (Feb. 11-13) and five days after (Feb. 19-20 and Feb. 23-25). During the campaign, BYD Korea will provide detailed free checks of items important for long-distance driving, including power-battery condition, underbody inspection, the brake system and whether consumable parts need replacement. The inspection takes about 30 minutes, and the company will also offer an in-cabin deodorizing service using a fogging device. All customers who visit a service center during the period will receive a small gift, the company said. “Because the Lunar New Year holiday is a time when long-distance travel is frequent, managing vehicle condition is especially important,” BYD Korea said in a statement. It said the campaign was designed to help customers travel more safely before and after the holiday, adding that it will continue expanding service programs tailored to real-world driving conditions and customer needs. BYD Korea said it plans to build a network of 26 service centers by year’s end to improve service quality. BYD Auto service centers nationwide operate Monday through Friday, and addresses and business hours by center are available on BYD Korea’s official website. * This article has been translated by AI. 2026-02-10 16:24:39
  • T’way Air to Launch Incheon-Jakarta Route in April, First for South Korean LCCs
    T’way Air to Launch Incheon-Jakarta Route in April, First for South Korean LCCs T’way Air said Monday it has opened reservations for its upcoming Incheon-Jakarta service, becoming the first South Korean low-cost carrier to launch the route. The airline plans to begin flights on April 29, operating five times a week on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It will use an Airbus A330-300 with 347 seats, including 12 business-class and 335 economy seats. Flights will depart Incheon International Airport at 3:10 p.m. and arrive at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport at 8:10 p.m. local time. Return flights will leave Jakarta at 9:50 p.m. and arrive at Incheon at 7:05 a.m. the next day. Flight time is about 7 hours, 10 minutes. A T’way Air official said the schedule opening will improve access to major cities in Southeast Asia and added that the airline will continue to prioritize safe operations while working to improve customer convenience. T’way Air said it has been expanding its overseas network across Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, Japan, Central Asia, Europe, Oceania and North America. The airline said it is strengthening competitiveness by adding more medium- and long-haul routes and plans to keep diversifying its network strategically.* This article has been translated by AI. 2026-02-10 16:24:18
  • South Korea’s Kim Sang-gyeom wins Olympic silver; Yoo Seung-eun takes bronze in snowboard big air
    South Korea’s Kim Sang-gyeom wins Olympic silver; Yoo Seung-eun takes bronze in snowboard big air South Korea’s once-thin record in snow sports gained two landmark Olympic medals in Livigno, Italy. Kim Sang-gyeom, a 37-year-old snowboarder who kept training while working construction day jobs, won silver to deliver South Korea’s 400th Olympic medal overall. A day later, 18-year-old Yoo Seung-eun overcame injuries to win bronze, the first Olympic medal by a South Korean woman in a ski or snowboard event. Kim and Yoo earned their medals one day apart in snowboarding at the 2026 Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo Winter Olympics, expanding South Korea’s footprint beyond its traditional winter strengths. ◆ From day laborer to Olympic medalist: Kim Sang-gyeom’s fourth try Kim won silver in the men’s parallel giant slalom final at Livigno Snow Park. It was the first medal for South Korea’s team at these Olympics. Kim began athletics as a child while dealing with asthma, then took up snowboarding in middle school on a teacher’s recommendation. After graduating from Korea National Sport University in 2011, he continued without a corporate-backed team, working part-time during training and taking day labor jobs at construction sites in the offseason to support himself. He showed early promise by winning the parallel giant slalom at the 2011 Erzurum Winter Universiade in Turkey, but struggled at the Olympics: 17th in qualifying at the 2014 Sochi Games to miss the round of 16; eliminated in the round of 16 at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games; and 24th in qualifying at the 2022 Beijing Games. His best world championships finish was fourth in parallel giant slalom in 2021. Kim’s results improved in his mid-30s. He won his first FIS Snowboard World Cup medal — silver — in November 2024 in Meilin, China, 15 years into his career, then added bronze in March last year in Krynica, Poland. At his fourth Olympics, Kim advanced eighth in qualifying and reached the knockout rounds. In the quarterfinals, he upset Roland Fischnaller of Italy, the No. 1 rider in this season’s FIS World Cup parallel giant slalom rankings. Kim reached the final but lost to Benjamin Karl of Austria by 0.19 seconds to take silver. “Finally, I did it. I’m really happy,” Kim said in a broadcast interview after the race. “I’m so glad to win a medal at my fourth Olympics. Today I rode at more than 90 points.” Thanking his family, he added, “Thank you for waiting. My family gave me a lot of strength. Thanks to everyone who believed in me, I didn’t give up and made it this far. I’ll hang this medal on my mom, dad and my wife.” “Snowboarding is my life,” he said. “There’s still a lot to get through, but I believe if I keep at it, there will be even better results.” Kim’s medal also marked a milestone for South Korean Olympic history. South Korea’s ski and snowboard programs won their first Olympic medal in 2018, when Lee Sang-ho took silver in the same event. Kim’s result added another medal in parallel giant slalom eight years later. It was also South Korea’s 400th Olympic medal overall. South Korea won its first Olympic medal at the 1948 London Summer Olympics, when weightlifter Kim Seong-jip earned bronze. Through the 2024 Paris Games, South Korea had won 320 Summer Olympic medals (109 gold, 100 silver, 111 bronze). Through the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, it had won 79 Winter Olympic medals (33 gold, 30 silver, 16 bronze), for a total of 399 before Kim’s silver. ◆ Yoo Seung-eun breaks through with South Korea women’s first snow-sports medal The next day, Yoo won bronze in the women’s snowboard big air final with 171.00 points across her first two runs. It was the first Olympic medal for a South Korean woman in skiing or snowboarding, and a notable result in a freestyle event judged on tricks and execution rather than alpine-style racing decided by fractions of a second. Yoo, born in 2008, reached the podium after a long stretch of rehabilitation. Soon after making her World Cup debut in 2024, she suffered an ankle injury that kept her off the snow for an extended period. Ahead of the Olympic season, she also broke her wrist during training. With big air’s high risk of falls, some questioned whether she could even compete at the Games. In her first final run, Yoo landed a “backside triple cork 1440,” a difficult trick involving a backward rotation and four spins, scoring 87.75 points. She added her second-run score to reach 171.00 overall, and despite an unsteady landing on her third run, her earlier scores held up for bronze. “I still can’t believe it. It’s an honor just to be on the same stage as the athletes I respect,” Yoo said after the medal ceremony. “For a year, I couldn’t do much because of injuries, but this experience gave me the courage that I can do it again next time. I’m really proud of myself.”* This article has been translated by AI. 2026-02-10 16:23:33
  • Hyundai Motor CEO Munoz: 125.2 trillion won for South Korea, 35 trillion won for North America over 5 years
    Hyundai Motor CEO Munoz: 125.2 trillion won for South Korea, 35 trillion won for North America over 5 years Hyundai Motor CEO Jose Munoz laid out large investment plans for South Korea and the United States, while also signaling a push to expand in emerging markets such as China and India. In an email to employees on Monday titled “Our Goals and Direction for 2026,” Munoz said Hyundai Motor will invest 125.2 trillion won in South Korea over the next five years, its largest-ever domestic investment plan, and about 35 trillion won in North America, or $26 billion. He added that the company is preparing to expand production capacity in India and restructure its China business, a strategy aimed at strengthening growth in South Korea and the U.S. while pursuing opportunities in India and China. For this year, Munoz set targets of global sales of 4.16 million vehicles, revenue growth of 1% to 2% and an operating profit margin of 6.3% to 7.3%. He said Hyundai Motor plans to sustain momentum with the launch of a Genesis hybrid and a range-extended electric vehicle, or EREV, slated for next year. “South Korea delivered stable growth on the back of the successful launches of the Palisade and Ioniq 9, and North America posted record-high sales for five straight years,” Munoz said. He said Europe accelerated its shift to electrification despite a tough regulatory environment, India’s EV sales grew by more than 750%, and Hyundai Motor is strengthening its strategy in China to match intense competition. Munoz attributed Hyundai Motor’s recent share-price gains to its “vision for physical AI and robotics” presented at CES, as well as revenue performance, strong execution and steady results. He said the company can achieve its 2030 strategy using the same PM² approach that drove last year’s results: moving quickly, preparing early, responding nimbly to change and working as “one global team.” Hyundai Motor also reaffirmed its long-term targets: global sales of 5.55 million vehicles by 2030, including 3.3 million eco-friendly vehicles, or 60% of the total. It set an operating profit margin goal of 8% to 9% and said it plans to expand its hybrid lineup to at least 18 models.* This article has been translated by AI. 2026-02-10 16:22:56
  • Catcher Choi Jae Hoon Out of South Korea’s 2026 WBC Team With Finger Injury; Kim Hyeong Jun Added
    Catcher Choi Jae Hoon Out of South Korea’s 2026 WBC Team With Finger Injury; Kim Hyeong Jun Added Hanwha Eagles catcher Choi Jae Hoon has been dropped from South Korea’s roster for the 2026 World Baseball Classic after injuring a finger.  The Korea Baseball Organization’s national team strengthening committee said Tuesday that Kim Hyeong Jun of the NC Dinos will replace Choi, who recently broke a finger during Hanwha’s winter training.  Kim will join LG Twins catcher Park Dong Won as South Korea’s catchers for the WBC. Kim had been left off the roster while rehabbing after breaking a palm bone last year, but was added after showing a quick recovery.  Kim previously played in the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games held in 2023, the 2023 Asia Professional Baseball Championship and the 2024 WBSC Premier12. * This article has been translated by AI. 2026-02-10 16:21:44
  • FKI Calls for Clearer Breach-of-Trust Standards to Boost Corporate Risk-Taking
    FKI Calls for Clearer Breach-of-Trust Standards to Boost Corporate Risk-Taking South Korea should refine the legal elements of its breach-of-trust crime to encourage entrepreneurship and investment in advanced industries such as artificial intelligence, batteries and biotechnology, a business group said. The Korea Federation of Korean Industries, known as FKI, said it held a seminar in Seoul on Monday at the FKI Tower conference center in Yeouido titled “Problems and Improvement Measures for the Breach-of-Trust Crime.” In opening remarks, FKI Executive Vice Chairman Kim Chang Bum said large-scale investment is needed to secure “future growth engines” in areas including AI, batteries, bio and mobility, but executives are struggling to make bold decisions because of breach-of-trust risks. “Reasonable improvements to the breach-of-trust system are needed to reduce management uncertainty and raise entrepreneurship, the source of innovation,” Kim said. Ahn Tae Jun, a professor at Hanyang University Law School, said the current provision is vague, undermining the criminal law principle of clarity and predictability. He warned that a civil-law breach of duty based on good faith could be treated as a crime, making the scope of liability hard to foresee. Ahn said managers often cannot know in advance whether their actions are criminally prohibited, and they can be punished based only on the “risk of loss” even without actual damage. That could turn failed business judgments into criminal cases and lead to the “criminalization of civil disputes,” weakening executives’ willingness to act, he said. Ahn said South Korea’s approach differs from major countries. Germany does not punish attempted breach of trust and has no aggravated provisions for occupational or special breach of trust, he said. Japan requires a strict subjective element beyond intent, including a purpose of seeking benefit for oneself or a third party or causing loss to the principal. The United States and the United Kingdom have no breach-of-trust statute, and even similar provisions are narrowly applied, he said. To reduce side effects, Ahn proposed creating a business judgment rule that treats reasonable decisions as not violating duty, or otherwise tightening the elements of the offense. Full repeal could also be an option, he said. In a discussion session, speakers also called for limiting criminal intervention in business judgment. Hong Young Ki, deputy dean of Korea University Law School, said breach of trust is the only crime that deprives or infringes another person’s property interests, and called for detailed practical guidelines and strict case-by-case application. Kang Won, a professor of business administration at Sejong University, said when executives are indicted for occupational breach of trust, they inevitably divert resources to self-defense until a final acquittal, which can weaken corporate competitiveness. He called for reforms that minimize criminal intervention in business judgment and clarify the presumption of innocence. Ryu Hyuk Sun, a professor in KAIST’s Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering who holds doctorates in business administration and law, said the vagueness of the provision is expanding criminal liability after the fact. He urged South Korea to reset the boundary between criminal and civil liability, similar to Germany and Japan, where criminal punishment functions as a last resort to supplement civil controls. * This article has been translated by AI. 2026-02-10 16:21:08