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Lee Gyu-lee

Korea Times Business Reporter

Lee Gyu-lee is a business writer at The Korea Times, focusing primarily on IT & telecommunications, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and KOTRA. Prior to this, she has covered a wide range of cultural news, from film, television and K-pop to lifestyle and fashion.

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Law & Crime

President vows crackdown on overseas scams

President Lee Jae Myung has ordered a sweeping public campaign across Southeast Asia to deter crimes targeting Korean nationals. Presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung shared in a written briefing that Lee visited the Special Task Force on Transnational Crime’s office at Government Complex Seoul on Monday morning to encourage its staff. During the visit, the president was briefed that reports of various fraud schemes, including voice phishing, have dropped sharply since the task force was launched. “Scams of all kinds are becoming increasingly sophisticated, destroying people’s lives,” Lee said, instructing officials to continue taking an uncompromising approach toward scam operations based overseas. “Work closely with local media in Southeast Asia to spread the clear message that anyone who messes with Koreans will face total ruin.” Briefed on the recent crackdown in Cambodia and the largest repatriation of Korean suspects to date, Lee emphasized the importance of close, seamless interagency cooperation that breaks down bureaucratic silos. Lee also had a video call with the Ko

Jan 26, 2026By Lee Gyu-lee
President vows crackdown on overseas scams
Tech & Science

Naver launches open beta of new social media platform in North America

Naver launched the open beta of its new user-generated content (UGC) platform, ThingsBook on Monday (local time), targeting the North American market. ThingsBook is a text-based social platform for users to create personal collections that thoughtfully document their experiences with movies, books, music, travel destinations and daily life while connecting and communicating with others who share similar interests. The platform also offers an advanced editor that allows users to enrich their text-based posts with images, locations, ratings and links, helping them better express their experiences and perspectives. “Naver has consistently ventured into overseas markets with global strategies tailored to local cultures and user characteristics. With ThingsBook as well, we aim to establish it as a platform that works closely with local users to build a creative culture centered on records and personal taste,” Kim Seung-eon, Naver’s global community business leader, said. “Through this global challenge, we will continue to raise the level of the service to help build a meaningful conte

Jan 26, 2026By Lee Gyu-lee
Naver launches open beta of new social media platform in North America
Tech & Science

Korea to invest $186.2 mil. to accelerate AI-driven manufacturing innovation

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources announced on Monday that it will invest a total of 268.5 billion won ($186.2 million) this year in its program for industrial infrastructure innovation, aiming to accelerate artificial intelligence (AI)-powered manufacturing. The number marks the largest budget ever allocated to the program, up 11.5 percent from last year. It is intended to bolster Korea’s technological self-reliance and industrial competitiveness amid intensifying global technology competition. The program funds shared equipment and facilities for companies and research institutions to use for testing, evaluation, certification and pilot-scale test bed use, easing the financial burden on individual firms. “In the era of rapid AI-driven technological disruption, securing advanced research infrastructure is crucial to staying ahead,” said Choi Yeon-woo, the ministry’s director general for industrial technology convergence policy. “Through this program, we will continue to support companies in keeping pace with emerging technologies by building and expanding shared in

Jan 26, 2026By Lee Gyu-lee
Korea to invest $186.2 mil. to accelerate AI-driven manufacturing innovation
Tech & Science

Korea emerges as Google Gemini’s second-largest revenue market

Google’s Gemini is rapidly gaining traction in Korea, which has become the second-largest paid subscription market for the generative artificial intelligence (AI) service. Korea generated 11.4 percent of Gemini’s global cumulative revenue on Apple's App Store — about $21 million — ranking second only to the United States at 23.7 percent, according to digital analytics firm Sensor Tower, Sunday. While Korea ranked only 17th in downloads, its revenue per download was the highest among major markets, underscoring the strong profitability. This growth trend has accelerated with the launch of Gemini 3 in November last year. The latest version enhanced reasoning ability, multimodal understanding and overall usability, allowing users to leverage the tool for research, writing and problem-solving without needing complex prompts. The user base has expanded sharply since the release of Gemini 3. Compared with levels before the version’s launch in November, daily active users (DAUs) in Korea have surged by 103.7 percent in recent days, the highest growth rate among major markets. In Korea

Jan 26, 2026By Lee Gyu-lee
Korea emerges as Google Gemini’s second-largest revenue market
Tech & Science

Korea moves to investigate Grok over sexually exploitative deepfake images

The Korean government is moving toward regulatory actions against Grok, xAI’s generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, following mounting concerns over its alleged involvement in generating and distributing sexually exploitative deepfake images. The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) has launched a preliminary fact-finding review into Grok after allegations were reported, according to a local news outlet, the Electronic Times, on Sunday. The preliminary process is to confirm whether the violation actually occurred and whether the matter falls within its jurisdiction before launching a formal investigation. The move follows a series of reports surfaced overseas accusing Grok of being used to create explicit and nonconsensual deepfake images, with some involving real individuals and minors. PIPC will reportedly determine its next steps after reviewing Grok’s explanation and supporting documents, while also reviewing global regulatory trends. Under the Personal Information Protection Act, altering or generating sexual images of identifiable individuals without co

Jan 25, 2026By Lee Gyu-lee
Korea moves to investigate Grok over sexually exploitative deepfake images
Tech & Science

Samsung SDS expects over $651 mil. operating profit in 2025

Samsung SDS estimated Thursday that its annual operating profit will be 957.1 billion won ($651.18 million) for 2025, with revenue of about 13.93 trillion won. The estimates represent an increase of 5 percent in operating profit and 0.7 percent in revenue year over year. In the fourth quarter of 2025, the company recorded about 3.54 trillion won in revenue, down 2.9 percent from the same period last year, while operating profit climbed 6.9 percent to 226.1 billion won. By business segment, the IT service division posted annual revenue of 6.54 trillion won, up 2.2 percent from the previous year. Its cloud business drove the growth with a 15.4 percent surge to 2.68 trillion won. The cloud service provider segment saw revenue growth driven by increased Samsung cloud platform and graphics processing units as a service (GPUaaS) usage, amid the expansion of generative artificial intelligence (AI) services, as well as expansion of high-performance computing and cloud network services. The managed service provider business also contributed to revenue growth, supported by a shift to the cloud in t

Jan 22, 2026By Lee Gyu-lee
Samsung SDS expects over $651 mil. operating profit in 2025
Companies

Walmart eyes K-beauty as cosmetics exports hit record highs

As the global boom in K-beauty continues, Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, has stepped up efforts to explore collaboration opportunities with Korean beauty brands. The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) said Wednesday that a delegation of 12 Walmart executives, including six vice presidents and purchasing heads, arrived in Korea on Tuesday for business networking and sourcing events in Seoul. The visit came as Korea’s cosmetics exports rose 12.3 percent year over year last year, surpassing $10 billion for the second consecutive year to reach $11.4 billion. Since 2024, Korean cosmetics have ranked No. 1 in the U.S. import market, overtaking French products. Last year, the United States became Korea’s largest export destination for cosmetics. Amid the K-beauty boom, KOTRA approached Walmart to explore broader cooperation, as the retailer views the rapid growth of Korean beauty brands as a potential driver of its own beauty business. With support from KOTRA, Walmart held one-on-one business meetings with 57 Korean companies selected through a comprehensive review of

Jan 22, 2026By Lee Gyu-lee
Walmart eyes K-beauty as cosmetics exports hit record highs
Tech & Science

LG CNS expands AI transformation push into pharma, biotech

LG CNS, an IT services and digital transformation arm of LG Group, is expanding its artificial intelligence (AI) business into the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector, securing a large-scale contract for a government-led drug R&D initiative and deploying an automated quality assessment system for pharmaceutical products. The company announced Wednesday that it is participating in the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s AI-driven drug R&D program, which will invest about 37.1 billion won ($25.2 million) over four years and three months. In this project, LG CNS will lead in developing an AI-powered platform to design and support clinical trials for new drug research. It will also build an integrated management framework that will utilize agentic AI to orchestrate various AI models that other participating institutions developed, creating synergies across the ecosystem. The company will apply a decentralized machine learning approach known as federated learning to the platform, enabling hospitals and clinical research centers to jointly train AI models without sharing sensitive data ext

Jan 21, 2026By Lee Gyu-lee
LG CNS expands AI transformation push into pharma, biotech
Tech & Science

Naver accelerates AI strategy as it eyes record earnings

Naver is strengthening its C-suite leadership to drive further growth in artificial intelligence (AI) as it expects to post record-high earnings for 2025 with an aggressive push to embed AI initiatives across key services such as e-commerce, advertising and cloud. The company announced that it will appoint three new top-level executives, effective Feb. 1, reshaping its leadership team. Naver named Kim Kwang-hyun, head of the company’s search and data platform division, as the new chief data & contents officer, tasked with accelerating the rollout of AI agents across Naver’s core services and advancing the integration of search and data technology platforms. Yoo Bong-seok, the former head of policy and risk management, will be chief corporate responsibility officer, overseeing company-wide policy and risk management amid tightening global regulations and growing scrutiny of platform responsibility. Hwang Soon-bae, head of human resources, will be promoted to chief human resources officer to lead organizational strategy in the AI era. The move comes as Naver is widely expected to recor

Jan 21, 2026By Lee Gyu-lee
Naver accelerates AI strategy as it eyes record earnings
Tech & Science

OpenAI's 'last resort' ad plan raises concerns over reliability

OpenAI’s decision to bring advertisements into its generative AI chatbot ChatGPT is fueling concerns that commercial pressures could undermine the reliability and neutrality of AI answers, potentially pushing users toward rival services. According to the company, it will begin testing ads in the free tier and the low-priced ChatGPT Go plan in the United States within weeks, while keeping higher-priced subscriptions ad-free. ChatGPT Go is a low-priced subscription tier positioned between the free and Plus plans, costing about $8 per month in the U.S. It explained that ads will appear beneath chatbot responses, clearly labeled and separated from AI-generated answers, while also stressing that the users’ data won’t be sold to advertisers. While the company insists ads will not influence responses, reactions from Korean users and industry insiders suggest growing unease over trust, privacy and the risk of service abandonment. A general user named Kim Bo-young, who occasionally use ChatGPT’s free-tier service, expressed doubt on the credibility of answers as they might prioritize adv

Jan 21, 2026By Lee Gyu-lee
OpenAI's 'last resort' ad plan raises concerns over reliability
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