Asian markets hardly move ahead of Fed decision SEOUL, December 10 (AJP) - Asian markets barely budged Wednesday as investors stayed on the sidelines ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s policy decision. In Seoul, the KOSPI slipped 0.2 percent to 4,135.00, extending its decline for a second session this week, while the KOSDAQ gained 0.4 percent to 935.00. Institutional investors unloaded 344.3 billion won ($234 million), offset by 296.4 billion won in foreign buying and 18.6 billion won from retail investors. Samsung Electronics fell 0.4 percent to 108,000 won ($73.4), but SK hynix jumped 3.7 percent to 587,000 won as foreign investors piled in following reports that the chipmaker is considering listing its treasury shares as American depositary receipts in the United States. An ADR allows U.S. investors to trade foreign stocks through certificates issued by a U.S. depository institution. Samsung SDI added 2.4 percent to 317,500 won after reports it had secured a battery supply deal worth about 2 trillion won ($1.36 billion) in the U.S. But most other large caps weakened. LG Energy Solution slipped 0.5 percent to 441,500 won, Hyundai Motor fell 1.5 percent to 302,500 won, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries eased 1 percent to 571,000 won, Hanwha Aerospace sank 3.9 percent to 923,000 won and Naver dropped 1.4 percent to 244,500 won. Entertainment stocks rose across the board, with HYBE up 2.8 percent to 299,000 won, SM Entertainment up 2.2 percent to 103,800 won, JYP Entertainment gaining 0.2 percent to 67,900 won and YG Entertainment rising 0.7 percent to 62,200 won. The Fed is widely expected to cut its target rate range — now at 3.75 percent to 4.00 percent — by 25 basis points. Japan’s Nikkei 225 inched down 0.1 percent to 50,602.80. Toyota Motor rose 1.6 percent to 3,116 yen ($19.9), while Honda Motor climbed 3.3 percent to 1,575.5 yen. But most other market heavyweights slipped: Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group fell 0.7 percent, SoftBank Group lost 0.7 percent, Sony Group dropped 2.9 percent and Hitachi dipped 0.5 percent. Nintendo retreated 2.7 percent, while Canon gained 2.1 percent. Bloomberg reported that Osaka — Japan’s second-largest economic hub and long a beneficiary of Chinese tourist inflows — is now facing sharp fallout from the slump in Chinese visitors. The Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau said hotel cancellation rates have reached 50 to 70 percent, with Namba, the city’s main entertainment district, hit the hardest. Luxury spending by Chinese tourists is projected to fall to $40 million to $60 million per month, about half previous levels. China’s Shanghai Composite Index edged down 0.2 percent to 3,900.50. Nomura’s chief China economist Ting Lu warned this week that Beijing must face the depth of its property-sector debt woes as export growth is expected to slow to around 4 percent next year. Lu expects the government to lower its official growth target from about 5 percent to 4.5–5.0 percent in 2026. Nomura projects China’s GDP will expand 4.3 percent in 2026. 2025-12-10 17:16:44

Wintry Seoul A woman bundles up against the cold as she waits from the traffic light to change at Gwanghwamun in downtown Seoul on Dec. 10, 2025 as the mercury dropped below zero.(AJP/Yoon Na-hyun) 2025-12-10 17:08:45

South Korean robotics leaders highlight rise of 'Physical AI' at COMEUP 2025 SEOUL, December 10 (AJP) - A discussion on the growing convergence of robotics and artificial intelligence drew a full audience at COMEUP 2025, South Korea's largest annual startup festival, on Wednesday, as two South Korean robotics entrepreneurs described how so-called "physical AI" is reshaping the sector and opening new markets for humanoid machines. The session, titled "Physical AI: Where Robotics Meets Intelligence," brought together ROBOTIS CEO Kim Byoung-soo and RLWRLD CEO Ryu Jung-hee. The two spoke candidly about the rapid shift taking place as robots move from rule-based industrial systems to AI-driven platforms capable of learning, perception, and autonomous action. Kim, who operates ROBOTIS, well-known for developing actuators widely used by robotics researchers, said the past year marked a major turning point. "Robots used to operate only on rule-based models inside factories," he said. "With AI attached, people now expect robots to move with real intelligence." He noted that demand for actuators is expanding beyond universities to AI labs and large companies investing in next-generation robotics. Ryu, formerly a venture investor, said he launched RLWRLD after realizing South Korea lacked a company building a foundation model for robotics. He described his team’s work on a "large vision-language-action model" that must interpret images, understand speech, and output robotic movements rather than text. "Human-level datasets for robots do not exist on the web," he said. "We have to create large amounts of data ourselves, and nobody yet knows the perfect model structure." The two speakers invited the audience to participate in real-time polls using colored lights attached to their seats. Most attendees said they expect humanoid robots to be working in homes within ten years, and an overwhelming majority predicted that South Korean companies will play an important role in the humanoid market alongside the United States and China. Kim said the industrial robot market, despite its long history, has a large room to grow once robots move out of factory lines. He pointed to global manufacturers already requesting robots that can be trained with long hours of data, adding that securing data and infrastructure has become a critical part of competition. Ryu said early demand for humanoids is strongest not in manufacturing but in service sectors such as convenience stores, hotels and logistics. "These are places that cannot relocate their operations abroad," he said. "Many of them told us they were waiting for humanoids with real AI." The speakers also discussed the challenges facing Korean robotics startups, including capital gaps with U.S. competitors and the difficulty of scaling data collection. Ryu noted that his one-year-old company is raising funds at a relatively high valuation by Korean standards, while comparable U.S. robotics-AI firms have reached multibillion-dollar levels. Both agreed that South Korea’s manufacturing expertise and its growing mix of hardware and AI companies allow it to compete in the emerging physical-AI field. Kim closed with a message to younger founders, warning against losing focus when investment becomes easier. "Stay with your original mission," he said. "Robotics and AI require discipline, not distractions." 2025-12-10 17:01:11

COMEUP 2025 COMEUP 2025, South Korea's largest annual startup festival, opened Dec. 10 for a three-day run at COEX in Seoul, drawing hundreds of founders, investors, and corporate leaders from around the world for three days of conferences, exhibitions, and business matching sessions. The event features startups from 46 countries and more than 270 companies presenting products and technologies across deep tech, AI, climate technology, gaming, mobile services and other sectors. Seven countries, including Saudi Arabia and India, have set up national pavilions to highlight their startup ecosystems. (AJP/Han Jun-gu) 2025-12-10 16:51:59

Coupang CEO resigns over data breach; US parent firm names interim chief SEOUL, December 10 (AJP) - Coupang said on Thursday that CEO Park Dae-jun has resigned following a major data breach, taking responsibility for the incident and its fallout. The e-commerce firm said Park apologized for disappointing customers and the public, and cited a sense of accountability in stepping down. The company’s U.S.-based parent, Coupang Inc., appointed Harold Rogers as interim CEO. Rogers, a legal and compliance specialist, has held senior positions at global companies and international law firms, including Sidley Austin and Millicom. Rogers said his immediate priorities would be to address customer concerns and stabilize operations. * This article, published by Aju Business Daily, was translated by AI and edited by AJP. 2025-12-10 16:46:01

Korea takes more active approach to find missing persons through AI and viral media SEOUL, December 10 (AJP) - Kim Tae-hee had a habit of staring at things a little longer than others, narrowing his eyes to make sense of a world blurred by poor sight. His speech was halting, shaped by a lifelong mental disability, but he could say his name and home phone number. None of it helped on April 23, 1988, when he disappeared in Seoul's Gangnam District at age 14. Thirty-seven years have passed since. Today, at 51, this is what he might look like. What once required foreign outsourcing, weeks of processing time, and high cost is now being done in Korea in a matter of moments. Using homegrown generative AI, researchers at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) are reconstructing the faces of long-term missing children — not as faded memories, not as sketches, but as people who might walk among us today. Sixty such individuals have been reimagined in collaboration with the government, the Korean National Police Agency (KNPA), KIST, and private partners. They reappear in middle age with softened jaws, thinning hair, or the deepening lines of a life lived elsewhere — a life their families never got to witness but still yearn to reclaim. "In the past, aging technology meant adding wrinkles or altering facial shape — what we used to call an 'aging function,'" said Kim Ig-jae, head of KIST's AI & Robotics Research Center, in an interview with AJP. "Generative AI learns the distribution of real human faces. When features such as skin texture, hair color, and contours change, the model interprets those variations as probabilities and generates new images based on them." "All of this happens in what we call a 'latent space,'" he said. "It's an abstract map of human characteristics. By modeling how attributes shift over time, the AI can estimate how a missing child might realistically appear today." The shift is transformative. Instead of outsourcing to U.S. firms at high cost, domestic researchers can now produce images rapidly, leaving stylization — hair, clothing, the personal signatures of a face — for manual adjustment. The National Center for the Rights of the Child (NCRC) has woven these images into public awareness campaigns with the KNPA, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare worked with KIST to generate current-age portraits for 60 of the 189 long-term missing children. While 99.6 percent of children reported missing in 2024 were found within a year, 1,417 remain lost for more than a year — including 1,128 missing for over two decades. To amplify recognition, Daehong launched "Runway to Home," a campaign that transforms the AI-generated adults into virtual models walking a fashion runway — paired alongside their younger selves. A symbolic reunion in digital form, the two versions walk side by side, asking commuters to look twice. "Hairstyles or clothing can dramatically change how someone is perceived, so we created multiple versions to spark associations," a Daehong manager said. The campaign is running on billboards in downtown Seoul during rush hour — a deliberate attempt to draw attention in an age when video captures more eyes than posters ever could. Families who viewed the campaign responded emotionally, according to the NCRC. "Both parents wear glasses, so we think he would too," one family said. Another pointed to the neatly tied hair in the AI rendering, saying, "It looks just like his aunt." For KIST's Kim, the effort carries both scientific promise and human weight. 'After we distributed an early version of this technology nearly ten years ago, one missing child was found after 38 years," he said. "Even when someone cannot be located, families tell us the images are a gift — a reminder that their children are still with them." Anyone with information or possible sightings is urged to call the Korean National Police Agency at 182 (no area code needed) or contact the National Center for the Rights of the Child at 02.777.0182. 2025-12-10 16:43:17

LG Uplus accused of hindering data breach probe by destroying critical server SEOUL, December 10 (AJP) - South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT has requested a police investigation into LG Uplus over allegations that the company intentionally disposed of a key server linked to a customer data breach. The ministry said the company discarded one of two APPM servers, which are critical for managing server account access and permissions, and submitted only the remaining server to a joint investigation team. “Both servers are required for an accurate forensic analysis, but one has already been disposed of, making a thorough investigation difficult,” a ministry official said. The case follows an August report by a U.S. security magazine, Frack, which said hacking activity had been detected on LG Uplus’s internal servers. At the time, the company said it found no evidence of intrusion. However, it was later confirmed that the operating system of the APPM server had been reinstalled a day before the company issued its initial response. The case has focused on whether sensitive customer data was leaked, and whether the company obstructed investigations by modifying or disposing of key digital evidence. Investigators said they have not ruled out the possibility of intentional destruction of evidence and have formally asked police to take over the case. An LG Uplus spokesperson said it was “currently assessing the situation.” * This article, published by Aju Business Daily, was translated by AI and edited by AJP. 2025-12-10 16:32:06

PPP lawmaker of American descent resigns to return to medical practice SEOUL, December 10 (AJP) - Ihn Yo-han, a lawmaker from the main opposition People Power Party, announced his resignation at a press conference in Seoul on Wednesday, urging "national unity." His abrupt resignation comes amid the struggling party's internal division and conflicts in the wake of disgraced former President Yoon Suk Yeol's botched Dec. 3 martial law debacle last year. The great-grandson of American missionary Eugene Bell, who was born in the liberal stronghold of South Jeolla Province, is a naturalized South Korean citizen and former professor at Yonsei University's Severance Hospital in Seoul. He began his political career with tasks related to the conservative party's urgent reforms in 2023. Expressing his desire to leave politics, he said, "I want to end my brief political career and return to my former profession." He criticized, "Party-driven binary politics exhausts citizens and is detrimental to national progress," calling for unity beyond the current political divide." Pointing to the difficulty of overcoming the disastrous debacle, he said he decided to give up all his privileges, adding "Change requires sacrifice." He entered politics to spearhead the PPP's reforms in October 2023, but stepped down after about a month. He then secured a seat in the National Assembly the following year. 2025-12-10 16:23:07

AI entrepreneur draws S. Korean startups to Saudi Arabia with promise of scale and cheaper AI infrastructure SEOUL, December 10 (AJP) - Tareq Amin, the CEO of Saudi Arabia's state-backed AI company HUMAIN, used his keynote at COMEUP 2025, South Korea's largest annual festival held at COEX in southern Seoul, on Wednesday to make a direct pitch to South Korean startups: consider Saudi Arabia as a place to build, scale and cut costs. Amin described a country in the middle of an economic overhaul under its Vision 2030 initiative, which aims to move Saudi Arabia beyond its traditional dependence on oil and gas. He said the shift is opening space for new industries built around digital services, artificial intelligence, and large-scale data infrastructure. "It is the fastest, digitally growing economy today in the G20," he said, calling the current moment a rare opening for founders looking outside their home markets. HUMAIN itself was formed earlier this year through a consolidation of entities backed by Saudi Aramco and the Public Investment Fund. Amin characterized the company as a full-stack AI player responsible for building out national data centers, developing foundation models, creating an AI-native enterprise operating system and launching a venture arm for joint investments. The name "HUMAIN," he noted, reflects the company's intention to keep people at the center of its technology. Amin highlighted three factors he believes set Saudi Arabia apart for South Korean startups: energy, cost, and scale. He said the kingdom has enough available power to support multi-gigawatt AI data centers and is targeting as much as 6 gigawatts of AI computing capacity by 2034. According to Amin, Saudi Arabia aims to handle about 20 percent of the world's AI inferencing traffic by 2030. He also claimed that HUMAIN's cloud hosting costs are significantly lower than major markets, citing internal estimates showing roughly 47 percent lower inferencing costs. He argued that Saudi Arabia's geographic position offers another advantage. With fiber links connecting the kingdom to multiple continents, he said the country can provide service reach to up to 4.4 billion people. "Power, land, connectivity — that is what gives us the chance to build something on a global scale," he said. Amin repeatedly pointed to South Korea's strengths in hardware, memory, and engineering, saying the two countries complement each other. HUMAIN plans to open a Korean office in February to deepen its ties with South Korean AI startups and chip designers. "Korea builds amazing products, and in Saudi Arabia, we know how to build at scale," he said. He also urged founders to think beyond South Korea's domestic market. "AI is a global race," he said. "Creating an amazing technology without finding a market for it does not mean a whole lot," Amin said Saudi Arabia's young population — the average age is about twenty-nine — and the country's willingness to adopt new technologies create a space where foreign startups can test and refine their products. 2025-12-10 16:20:50

Seoul replays K-Pop Demon Hunters in pop-up Colorful displays at the Netflix K-Pop Demon Hunters pop-up store in Seoul’s Seongdong District on December 10, 2025. AJP Yoo Na-hyun 2025-12-10 16:11:02