Homeplus pays April, May wages as Express sale proceeds SEOUL, June 23 (AJP) - Homeplus, the South Korean hypermarket chain mired in court-led rehabilitation, paid its long-overdue April and May wages, drawing on funds widely believed to have come from the sale of its supermarket unit. Industry reports say the cash-strapped retailer disbursed the unpaid 75 percent of April salaries along with full May wages and shutdown allowances to all employees on Tuesday morning. The company declined to identify the source of the funds, though pro June 23, 2026

Samsung, SK hynix to unveil new facility investment in southern Korea SEOUL, June 23 (AJP) - South Korea's memory giants Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, both based in the capital region, are moving south to build new fabs as their semiconductor campuses in Gyeonggi Province have little room left for expansion to meet explosive demand in the AI era. The southward pivot by the Korean chipmakers coincides with the government's push to ease concentration around Seoul and cultivate the southern coast, rich in renewable energy resources, into a June 23, 2026

Korea touts edge in Canada submarine bid despite NATO concerns SEOUL, June 23 (AJP) - South Korean Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan said Tuesday that Seoul remained hopeful about its bid for Canada’s next-generation submarine program. “We are hopeful as we await the result,” Kim told reporters after returning from visits to Kazakhstan, Europe and the Middle East. South Korea’s Hanwha Ocean is competing with Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, or TKMS, for Canada’s plan to acquire up to 12 conventionally June 23, 2026

LG Chem to invest $9.7 billion in R&D for AI-driven materials shift SEOUL, June 23 (AJP) - LG Chem will pour 15 trillion won ($9.75 billion) into research and development through 2035 as South Korea's largest chemical maker pivots toward high-value, AI-driven materials. Chief executive Kim Dong-chun told a town hall meeting on Monday that the company would cultivate semiconductor, mobility and robotics materials, along with cancer drugs, as its core future businesses, sharpening a portfolio long anchored in commodity chemicals. The strategy c June 23, 2026

Samsung develops industry's fastest UFS 5.0 storage chip for on-device AI SEOUL, June 23 (AJP) - Samsung Electronics has engineered the industry's fastest UFS 5.0 memory chip designed to power next-generation on-device artificial intelligence applications, the company said on Tuesday. As generative AI rapidly shifts from the cloud to local devices, the new memory chip is designed to significantly reduce latency and accelerate response times when running large language models (LLMs) in on-device AI environments. Built on Samsung's ninth-genera June 23, 2026

Samsung Elec HBM4 chip sales surpass $1 bln in first four months SEOUL, June 23 (AJP) - Samsung Electronics, vying to leapfrog in the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) race, has shipped out $1 billion worth of the sixth-generation HBM4 over the last four months since mass production, according to sources close to the matter. The news come as the long-standing No.1 stock surrendered its place to SK hynix, the frontrunner in HBM essential to power AI accelerators of Nvidia and other major chip designers as well as hyperscale datacenters. SK hynix on June 23, 2026

Nexon launches $162 million fund for early-stage game studios SEOUL, June 23 (AJP) - Nexon is rolling out a five-year, 250 billion won ($162.2 million) investment program aimed at seeding early-stage game developers, moving to fill what it described as a widening capital gap in South Korea's domestic gaming market. The South Korean game maker said Tuesday it would channel money into studios at the seed and Series A stages, pairing large-scale private capital with government policy funds in a public-private structure designed to revive falt June 23, 2026

HD Hyundai Heavy challenges KDDX evaluation over security penalty SEOUL, June 22 (AJP) - HD Hyundai Heavy Industries has filed a formal objection to the evaluation results for South Korea’s next-generation destroyer program after losing to Hanwha Ocean by less than one point, industry sources said Monday. The company submitted the objection to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration over the bidding process for the detailed design and construction of the lead vessel under the Korean Destroyer Next Generation, or KDDX, program. HD H June 22, 2026

LG Electronics' micro LED signage wins Best of Show award at InfoComm 2026 SEOUL, June 22 (AJP) - LG Electronics' micro LED signage product, LG MAGNIT, has won a Best of Show award in the installation and digital signage categories at InfoComm 2026, a display industry trade show held in Las Vegas, the company said on Monday. The company presented a range of commercial display solutions at the three-day event, which ran from June 17 under the theme "Solutions Beyond Displays." LG MAGNIT was also named "Most Innovative Digital Signage June 22, 2026

NATO looms over Canada's Korea-Germany submarine choice SEOUL, June 22 (AJP) - Canada's $40 billion submarine procurement is evolving from an industrial contest into a geopolitical choice, with an upcoming NATO summit poised to give Germany an edge over South Korea by elevating alliance politics over delivery speed. South Korea's Hanwha Ocean and Germany's ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, or TKMS, are entering the final stretch of the race to win a contract to deliver 12 submarines to replace Canada's aging Victoria-class fle June 22, 2026