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Nam Hyun-woo

Korea Times Business Reporter

Nam Hyun-woo has worked as a staff writer at The Korea Times since 2013, mostly covering business and politics. He currently belongs to the Business Desk where he covers topics such as emerging tech, AI, ICT and Korea's chaebol community. Prior to joining the team, he was the paper's correspondent for the presidential office of Korea during the Yoon Suk Yeol and Moon Jae-in administrations.

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Companies

Kakao to focus on AI-based services, not infrastructure

Mobile platform giant Kakao said Thursday it will focus on artificial intelligence (AI)-based services rather than infrastructure such as data centers and cloud computing, noting that its goal is to make AI services more accessible and convenient for users in their daily lives. As part of such efforts, the company said it will partner with food delivery platform Coupang Eats and integrate the service into Kakao’s agentic AI, allowing users to receive menu recommendations and complete orders and payments within KakaoTalk, the company’s flagship messaging app. “AI infrastructure businesses require massive upfront investment and continued expenditures on facilities, and the generation changes of advanced chips and AI servers are increasingly fast,” Kakao CEO Chung Shin-a said during the company’s second-quarter earnings call. “Considering the recent competitive expansion of supply, it will be difficult to guarantee a sustainable profitability.” She added: “Rather than entering the AI infrastructure business, we will focus on the layers spanning models and services that consu

Aug 6, 2026By Nam Hyun-woo
Kakao to focus on AI-based services, not infrastructure
Tech & Science

Korean NPU makers seek track records ahead of potential IPOs

Rebellions, FuriosaAI and DEEPX, three domestic Korean makers of neural processing units (NPUs), are striving to build track records in the market, as securing actual customers and generating revenue are essential to raising their valuations and pursuing initial public offerings (IPOs). Rebellions, which designs its ATOM NPU for small data centers and on-device artificial intelligence (AI), said Monday that it will supply ATOM-Max Servers to public surveillance control centers operated by the South Gyeongsang Provincial Government and Ulsan Metropolitan City. Marking the first case of an AI-based public CCTV surveillance system in Korea, Rebellions’ ATOM-Max will run a large vision-language model with 30 billion parameters on servers at the control centers to analyze surveillance footage. The system will identify fires and suspicious activity and generate Korean-language descriptions of the situations. Earlier, the company ran SK Telecom’s hyperscale AI model A.X K1 on a single one of its own servers, while KT Cloud has been offering cloud services powered by ATOM. Rebellions is als

Aug 5, 2026By Nam Hyun-woo
Korean NPU makers seek track records ahead of potential IPOs
Tech & Science

Samsung introduces zHBM to stack memory vertically on logic chip

Samsung Electronics showcased its next-generation 3D memory architectures at Future of Memory and Storage 2026 in California on Tuesday (local time), unveiling mockups of zHBM and zNAND-O. Samsung outlined its vision for 3D architectures for future memory solutions during a keynote speech by its memory business executives and exhibited mockups of the two new structures at its booth. ZHBM is an architecture aimed at improving the data processing speed of artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators by shortening the physical distance between logic processors — central processing units, graphics processing units and others — and high-bandwidth memory (HBM). While conventional HBM is placed beside logic chips, zHBM is stacked directly on top of the processor. By shortening the distance that data must travel, the new architecture delivers higher bandwidth and improved power efficiency. To support this architecture, Samsung applied hybrid copper bonding, multiwafer bonding and other advanced technologies, which together increase signal transfer speed while reducing thermal resistance. Samsung

Aug 5, 2026By Nam Hyun-woo
Samsung introduces zHBM to stack memory vertically on logic chip
Tech & Science

Samsung Galaxy Z8 foldables set record with 1.44 mil. preorders

More than 1.44 million units of Samsung Electronics' new Galaxy Z8 foldable smartphone series were sold in Korea during the seven-day preorder period that ended Tuesday, setting a new preorder record for Samsung's Galaxy smartphone lineup. According to the company, aggregate preorders for the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, Fold8 and Flip8 reached 1.44 million units during the preorder period from July 28 to Monday. This translates to roughly 140 units sold every minute. The previous Galaxy preorder record was held by the Galaxy Note 10, which saw 1.38 million preorders over an 11-day period in 2019. Among the Galaxy S series, the previous record belonged to the Galaxy S26 lineup, which logged 1.35 million preorders during a seven-day preorder period earlier this year. Early sales were driven by the Galaxy Fold8, which for the first time adopted a 4:3 aspect ratio to deliver a more passport-like profile. The Galaxy Fold8 accounted for about 70 percent of total preorders during the preorder period, reflecting particularly strong consumer demand for new form factors. Major mobile carriers also report

Aug 4, 2026By Nam Hyun-woo
Samsung Galaxy Z8 foldables set record with 1.44 mil. preorders
Tech & Science

SK hynix, Sandisk unveil standards for high-bandwidth flash memory

SK hynix and Sandisk have introduced the industry's first standards for high-bandwidth flash (HBF), a storage technology designed to accelerate artificial intelligence (AI) inference by enabling faster data transfers, similar to the role high-bandwidth memory (HBM) plays in AI systems. According to SK hynix, the two companies will unveil the standards at the Future of Memory and Storage 2026 exhibition, held in California from Tuesday through Thursday (local time). Through keynote speeches and panel discussions, they will present HBF as a key technology for addressing memory bottlenecks in the AI era. In AI accelerators, HBF is designed to sit between HBM and storage devices such as solid-state drives (SSDs). It offers significantly higher bandwidth than SSDs while retaining the large storage capacity of NAND flash memory. As AI inference drives explosive growth in the amount of data processing, HBF is drawing attention as a technology capable of delivering both high bandwidth and scalable storage capacity. The new standards came six months after SK hynix formed a consortium with Sandisk

Aug 4, 2026By Nam Hyun-woo
SK hynix, Sandisk unveil standards for high-bandwidth flash memory
Tech & Science

PHOTO Breaking ground for National AI Computing Center

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT Bae Kyung-hoon, front row fourth from left, and Samsung SDS CEO Lee June-hee, fifth from left, attend the groundbreaking ceremony for the National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Computing Center in Haenam County, South Jeolla Province, Monday. The government, Samsung SDS and other consortium members will invest 2.5 trillion won ($1.75 billion) to complete the center by 2028 and equip it with 15,000 advanced AI accelerators to support public AI computing. Newsis

Aug 3, 2026By Nam Hyun-woophoto
[PHOTO] Breaking ground for National AI Computing Center
Companies

Doosan expedites transition into AI infrastructure powerhouse

Doosan Group is accelerating its transformation into an artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure powerhouse after reaching a deal to acquire chip wafer manufacturer SK Siltron at what analysts described as “a reasonable price.” The acquisition will give the group a presence across the semiconductor manufacturing value chain, spanning wafers, substrate materials and testing, while expanding its portfolio beyond heavy industry and strengthening semiconductors as a key earnings pillar. On Friday, Doosan Corp. and SK Inc. announced that the former will take over a 70.6 percent stake in SK Siltron held by the latter at 2.3 trillion won ($1.61 billion). The deal came seven months after Doosan Corp. was selected as the preferred bidder for the stake. The prolonged negotiations had fueled speculation that SK was seeking a significantly higher price following the surge in semiconductor demand. However, the two sides ultimately agreed on a 2.3 trillion won deal, while including an earn-out clause under which SK will receive additional proceeds if SK Siltron's earnings exceed a predetermine

Aug 3, 2026By Nam Hyun-woo
Doosan expedites transition into AI infrastructure powerhouse
Companies

Lotte founder's entrepreneurship highlighted at business history congress

A congress on the world's business history cast new light on Lotte Group founder Shin Kyuk-ho's entrepreneurship, highlighting his ability to identify new growth drivers by transcending boundaries across countries and industries. According to Lotte, Monday, professor Baek In-soo of Osaka University of Economics presented “The Boundless Advantage: A Dynamic Analysis of Lotte Founder Shin Kyuk-ho’s Transnational Entrepreneurial Journey” during Thursday's 2026 World Congress of Business History in Toronto. Baek previously examined Shin's entrepreneurship in a 2023 study, describing him as a "boundaryless pioneer," and expanded that framework in his latest research. According to Baek, "boundless advantage" refers to the ability to transform knowledge and resources acquired across national, industrial and organizational boundaries into new sources of growth. The paper divided Shin's life into four stages — youth, early middle age, late middle age and old age — and examined the boundaries he encountered and how he overcame them at each stage based on autobiographies, corporate histo

Aug 3, 2026By Nam Hyun-woo
Lotte founder's entrepreneurship highlighted at business history congress
Tech & Science

Is CXMT real threat to memory dominance of Samsung, SK hynix?

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won purchased 4.9 billion won ($3.41 million) in SK hynix shares during Thursday's trading session, buying just below the threshold that would have required him to disclose the transaction plan 30 days in advance. SK Group said the purchase reflected Chey's view that the recent sell-off in SK hynix shares had been excessive and showed his confidence in the company's competitiveness. SK hynix shares hit an all-time intraday high of 2.987 million won on June 25 before tumbling to 1.322 million won at Thursday's close. Although the stock rebounded on Friday, investors are still concerned that global Big Tech companies’ artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure spending may have peaked, and the memory chip market could face a supply glut. At the center of those fears is China’s ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), whose blockbuster stock market debut has reignited concerns over the future balance of the global memory market. The Chinese DRAM maker raised 12.56 trillion won through its initial public offering on July 27, fueling expectations that the fresh ca

Jul 31, 2026By Nam Hyun-woo
Is CXMT real threat to memory dominance of Samsung, SK hynix?
Tech & Science

LG unveils 750 bil.-parameter frontier AI model K-EXAONE 2.0

LG AI Research said Friday it has released K-EXAONE 2.0, Korea's largest artificial intelligence (AI) model with 750 billion parameters, to the open-source community Hugging Face. The model is intended for submission to the Korean government's National AI Foundation Model project, which aims to foster foundation models developed from scratch using domestic technology. The 2.0 model has more than tripled its parameter count from the 1.0 version that LG AI Research previously submitted for the project. LG AI Research also adopted the Apache 2.0 license for K-EXAONE 2.0, allowing unrestricted commercial use. The model scored an average of 70.1 across 24 benchmark evaluations, more than 10 percent higher than the 63.3 recorded by K-EXAONE 1.0. In particular, its average performance across three key coding and agentic coding benchmarks improved by 30 percent. In global and Korean long-context comprehension benchmarks (OpenAI-MRCR and Ko-LongBench), the model scored 94.4 and 89.6, respectively, outperforming Zhipu's GLM-5.1. In an agentic tool-use benchmark (Tau3-Bench Banking), the model score

Jul 31, 2026By Nam Hyun-woo
LG unveils 750 bil.-parameter frontier AI model K-EXAONE 2.0
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