Korea revives startup contest with doubled scale after data leak SEOUL, August 13 (AJP) - South Korea's Ministry of SMEs and Startups unveiled plans to relaunch its flagship "Startup for All" competition at twice the scale, pressing ahead with an ambitious idea-driven audition just weeks after a personal data breach forced the program's indefinite suspension. The ministry said Thursday it would recruit 10,000 participants for the second round — double the 5,000 chosen in the inaugural edition — under a plan announced August 13, 2026

Hyundai Rotem, KAI team up to home-grow fighter jet SEOUL, August 13 (AJP) - Hyundai Rotem has agreed to team up with Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) to develop homegrown aviation weapons technology including a long-range air-to-air missile for the county's KF-21 fighter jet. Hyundai Rotem said Thursday it signed a memorandum of understanding with KAI the previous day at KAI's headquarters in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang Province, to combine its guided weapon and propulsion technologies with KAI's aircraft platform expert August 13, 2026

Naver invests in wave-powered ocean data center startup Panthalassa SEOUL, August 13 (AJP) - Naver announced it has invested in Panthalassa, a U.S. startup building floating, wave-powered artificial intelligence data centers, deepening its push to lock down next-generation infrastructure as the global scramble for computing power intensifies. The deal revealed Thursday extends a rapid buildout by Naver, which has been racing to secure AI capacity through a string of high-profile partnerships. In July, the company, Nvidia and Brookfield Asset Mana August 13, 2026

HD Hyundai chief set to meet Bill Gates in Seoul SEOUL, August 13 (AJP) - Bill Gates, founder and chairman of U.S. nuclear energy firm TerraPower, is set to meet HD Hyundai chairman Chung Ki-sun in Seoul this week to discuss ways to expand cooperation in small modular reactors (SMRs), according to industry sources on Thursday. Their meeting comes about seven months after they last met on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, in January. The Microsoft founder is also scheduled to meet with Prime August 13, 2026

Kairospace verifies satellite de-orbit device in space SEOUL, August 13 (AJP) - A South Korean startup announced it had successfully demonstrated a device designed to pull defunct satellites out of orbit faster, a modest but concrete step in the global effort to curb the growing hazard of space debris. Kairospace said Thursday that its in-house de-orbit system, dubbed DORB, had proven its performance aboard a CubeSat launched into space by South Korea's homegrown Nuri rocket, in what the company described as a full validation under August 13, 2026

Military academy alumni urge defense minister to reconsider three-school merger SEOUL, August 12 (AJP) - Alumni associations of South Korea’s Army, Navy and Air Force academies urged Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back on Wednesday to reconsider the government’s plan to merge the three service academies, with Ahn saying he would remain open to their concerns. Leaders of the three alumni associations met Ahn to raise concerns over the proposed integration and argue that the government’s reform goals could be achieved without merging the existing acad August 12, 2026

Lee calls for Korea to lead, not chase, with seven future-tech projects SEOUL, August 12 (AJP) - President Lee Jae Myung on Wednesday called for South Korea to move beyond catching up with global technology leaders and take the lead in emerging industries, as the government unveiled seven “SEED” projects. Lee said South Korea must use the opportunity created by its semiconductor industry to prepare for the technologies and industries that will follow the current artificial intelligence boom. “The seven advanced technologies and seve August 12, 2026

HBM isn't enough: Chipmakers race to break AI's memory wall SEOUL, August 12 (AJP) - The race to build faster artificial intelligence memory is beginning to move beyond simply stacking more DRAM, as chipmakers confront a more fundamental problem: even high-bandwidth memory may not be enough to keep increasingly powerful AI processors fed with data. For the past several years, competition among memory makers has centered on successive generations of HBM, from HBM3E to HBM4 and HBM4E. SK hynix, Samsung Electronics and Micron have raced to in August 12, 2026

Naver confirms KEF membership, plays down labor-tension angle SEOUL, August 12 (AJP) - Naver, South Korea's largest internet company, has become the first domestic IT firm to join the Korea Enterprises Federation, the country's main employers' body. A Naver spokesperson said Wednesday that the membership, secured late last year, should be read chiefly through the lens of industrial convergence rather than labor relations. "This is a period when AI is accelerating connections across industries, and it should be seen as an ef August 12, 2026

KT Q2 profit falls 36% on tough property-gain base, AI revenue climbs SEOUL, August 12 (AJP) - KT reported a 36.1 percent year-on-year drop in second-quarter operating profit, as the absence of a large one-off property gain that lifted last year's earnings to a record weighed on the bottom line. According to regulatory filings released Wednesday, the telecommunications carrier posted consolidated operating profit of 648.3 billion won ($457 million) for the April to June quarter, down from 1.01 trillion won a year earlier. Revenue fell 10.1 percent August 12, 2026