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Lee Kyung-min

Korea Times AI content 2 team Reporter

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South Korea

Sejong University taps Sheridan College to sharpen Korea’s animation edge

Sejong University is moving to expand its global footprint in animation education, hosting senior leaders from Sheridan College, a Canadian institution known for its highly regarded animation and design programs, for talks aimed at strengthening academic and research collaboration. The meeting, held April 2, brought together Sejong University President Eom Jong-hwa and Sheridan College President Cindy Gouveia, along with key faculty and administrators from both institutions to discuss practical avenues for cooperation. Sheridan College, based in the province of Ontario, is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading schools in animation and the arts. Founded in 1967, it ranked No. 2 globally in animation schools in 2025 by Animation Career Review and is often referred to in the industry as a training ground for top talent working at major studios such as Walt Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks Animation. Ahead of the talks, the Sheridan delegation toured Sejong University’s advanced production facilities, including Team Studio Sejong and a motion capture studio, expressing strong intere

Apr 20, 2026By Lee Kyung-min
Sejong University taps Sheridan College to sharpen Korea’s animation edge
Business

Korea, India launch joint space partnership during summit in Bengaluru

The Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) said Monday it had held a joint Korea-India Space Day in Bengaluru with the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Center, calling it a first concrete step toward expanding bilateral cooperation in the space sector. The event, held in India’s aerospace hub, followed a memorandum of understanding signed in October 2025 between the agency and the Indian Space Research Organisation. It was intended to translate shared priorities into tangible business outcomes in the space industry. More than 80 Indian companies applied in advance to participate, underscoring strong local interest in Korean space firms, the agency said. Korean government bodies, research institutes and private companies joined as a unified delegation to broaden cooperation across policy, research and industrial value chains. The program was divided into policy and research sessions and an industry session. Oh Tae-seok, commissioner of KOSA, said India is a key partner in the global space sector. “India is a leading space power that achieved the world’s first landing

Apr 20, 2026By Lee Kyung-min
Korea, India launch joint space partnership during summit in Bengaluru
Business

Genesis completes debut endurance test at Imola race

Genesis crossed the finish line in its first appearance at the FIA World Endurance Championship, with both of its cars completing the grueling 6 Hours of Imola race in Italy. The automaker said its racing team, Genesis Magma Racing, entered two GMR-001 hypercars in the top-tier class at the season's opening race, held April 17 to 19 at the Imola Circuit. Both entries — No. 17 and No. 19 — finished the race, placing 15th and 17th after completing 211 and 189 laps, respectively. The hypercar class featured 17 entries from eight manufacturers, including Ferrari, BMW, Toyota, Aston Martin and Cadillac. Toyota secured victory after completing 213 laps over six hours. The 6 Hours of Imola is an endurance race in which three drivers take turns piloting the same car around the 4.909-kilometer circuit continuously for six hours, with the team covering the greatest distance declared the winner. Genesis said since it was the team’s debut in the championship, it focused on stable race management and finishing both cars. Despite the circuit’s technical difficulty and competition from more exp

Apr 20, 2026By Lee Kyung-min
Genesis completes debut endurance test at Imola race
Entertainment

Aespa to return with bold new chapter in ‘Lemonade’

The architects of K-pop’s distinct "metallic" sound are officially returning to the fray. SM Entertainment announced Monday that powerhouse girl group aespa will release its second full-length album, “Lemonade,” on May 29, promising a sharpened musical direction and an expansion of the group’s signature high-concept narrative. The 10-track collection arrives as the highly anticipated follow-up to 2024’s “Armageddon,” a career-defining project that achieved a clean sweep across all major Korean streaming platforms and earned the group a historic nod as Group of the Year at Billboard’s 2025 Women in Music. While the new title suggests potential summer brightness, the group is expected to lean further into the sophisticated, experimental textures that have become their calling card. The announcement follows a prolific year of evolution for the quartet. Last year’s single, “Dirty Work,” and its sixth EP, “Rich Man,” signaled a willingness to move beyond the rigid boundaries of the group's "metaverse" origins, exploring broader genre influences while maintaining their

Apr 20, 2026By Lee Kyung-min
Aespa to return with bold new chapter in ‘Lemonade’
South Korea

Kookmin Univ., UBC researchers offer new framework to make generative AI safer

As generative artificial intelligence (AI) advances, the ability to create vivid images and videos has often outpaced the ability to control them. As these systems move beyond digital art into higher-stakes fields like medicine and autonomous driving, concerns over “hallucinations” and the leakage of copyrighted data have become more pressing. Kim Min-gyu, a professor of AI at Kookmin University, argues that the answer lies in a more rigorous mathematical approach. In a paper selected for oral presentation at the International Conference on Learning Representations 2026, he and collaborators at the University of British Columbia introduced a framework called Safety-Guided Flow (SGF). The approach aims to bring coherence to a fragmented set of safety tools. Developers have typically relied on “denoising” techniques to filter harmful output, but these methods often function as ad hoc fixes. The study shows that such techniques can be understood within a single mathematical framework. By modeling safety as a “potential function,” SGF can more effectively block problematic outp

Apr 17, 2026By Lee Kyung-min
Kookmin Univ., UBC researchers offer new framework to make generative AI safer
South Korea

Korea Heritage Service recruits int'l students as cultural ambassadors

Forty international students in Korea will use artificial intelligence (AI) and multilingual social media content to promote the country’s cultural heritage abroad, as the government expands a program aimed at countering distorted narratives and broadening global awareness. The Korea Heritage Service said Thursday it had launched the fifth group of participants in its Global Cultural Heritage Ambassadors program at the National Palace Museum of Korea. The program, operated with the civic group Voluntary Agency Network of Korea and its director, Park Ki-tae, recruits foreign students living in Korea to experience cultural heritage firsthand and create digital content in multiple languages. This year, 40 government scholarship students from around the world were selected for the roughly three-month program, the agency said. Participants will produce and distribute social media content using generative AI to highlight the value and appeal of Korea’s cultural heritage. At the launch ceremony, participants received official appointments and took part in training on Korea’s heritage and g

Apr 17, 2026By Lee Kyung-min
Korea Heritage Service recruits int'l students as cultural ambassadors
Business

Hyundai Rotem finds faster track to carbon neutrality with high-speed rail

Hyundai Rotem, the rail manufacturing arm of Hyundai Motor Group, has developed a software platform designed to reduce energy use across high-speed rail networks, the company said Friday. Developed in partnership with Korea Railroad Corporation and Korea National University of Transportation, the Intelligent Energy-Efficient Operation System (IEOS) analyzes real-time track conditions and environmental data to calculate the most efficient speed for each segment of a journey, minimizing the acceleration and braking that drive up energy consumption. On a pilot run on the KTX-Eum line between Seoul and Gangneung, the system reduced energy use by as much as 12.2 percent. The push for efficiency comes as rail operators globally face mounting pressure to curb emissions without expanding already costly infrastructure. High-speed rail is often promoted as a lower-carbon alternative to air travel, but energy use remains significant, particularly on routes with frequent speed changes. Software-based solutions like IEOS are gaining traction as a faster, less capital-intensive way to deliver emissio

Apr 17, 2026By Lee Kyung-min
Hyundai Rotem finds faster track to carbon neutrality with high-speed rail
Business

T’way Air expands transit network to boost regional airports

T’way Air is expanding international transit services beyond Daegu to Jeju, accelerating a strategy to turn regional airports into global hubs, the budget carrier said Friday. The airline said it began connecting international transit services at Jeju International Airport on April 1, following an earlier launch at Daegu International Airport on April 7, 2025. At Daegu International Airport, the service — the first of its kind by a Korean carrier — has handled about 4,000 transit passengers in its first year, with monthly traffic surpassing 1,000 in March, the airline said. Routes linking Daegu with Taipei, Osaka and Tokyo’s Narita have driven demand, while streamlined transfers have reduced the need for another check-in and eased entry procedures for foreign travelers, the carrier added. Building on that momentum, the airline said it is now operating transit routes such as Singapore-Jeju-Fukuoka, becoming the only carrier currently offering international transit on Japan’s southern resort island. The expansion effectively revives Jeju’s role as a transit hub after similar ser

Apr 17, 2026By Lee Kyung-min
T’way Air expands transit network to boost regional airports
South Korea

Universities showcase talent pipeline for advanced industries

Korea’s top universities are stepping up efforts to train workers for semiconductors, batteries and biotech, as the government moves to expand a flagship program aimed at meeting rising industrial demand. The Ministry of Education and the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology said they are hosting an event in Seoul Friday to present outcomes from the “advanced industry specialized university” initiative. The program, launched in 2023 with a focus on semiconductors, has since expanded to secondary batteries and biotech, and will add robotics in 2026 to support next-generation technologies in the era of physical artificial intelligence (AI). A total of 33 project groups are supported this year — 20 in semiconductors, five in batteries, five in biotech and three in robotics — with a funding worth 120.9 billion won ($90 million) in 2026. Participating universities worked with 693 companies in 2025 to develop or upgrade 434 courses, including 232 industry-linked classes, and trained 3,576 students, the organizers said. At Friday’s event, four universities — Kyungpook Nati

Apr 17, 2026By Lee Kyung-min
Universities showcase talent pipeline for advanced industries
Others

Trade surplus no longer shields weak won, BOK says

For decades, Korea’s economic playbook followed a familiar pattern: Strong exports of semiconductors and automobiles produced trade surpluses that, in turn, tended to support the won. But a Bank of Korea (BOK) report released Friday suggests that link has weakened, pointing to a structural shift in how the currency interacts with global markets. Despite a steady account surplus since 2015, the real value of the won has continued to fall. Since 2023, that gap has widened; even as the surplus grew, the currency has depreciated faster than many peers. The central bank attributes the “decoupling” to a major change in capital flows. Where surplus dollars once accumulated in official foreign exchange reserves, they are now increasingly directed by private investors — from institutional and individual investors to pension funds — seeking returns abroad. Much of that capital is flowing to the United States. As of 2024, more than 63 percent of Korea’s overseas securities investments were concentrated in the U.S., far above the 25.3 percent average among other advanced economies. That s

Apr 17, 2026By Lee Kyung-min
Trade surplus no longer shields weak won, BOK says
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