Business - The Korea Times

YouTube service normalized after temporary disruption in Korea

YouTube service was normalized after experiencing a temporary disruption in Korea on Thursday, which had affected playback on both mobile and desktop devices, according to industry watchers. Earlier in the day, an error prevented some users from playing videos when accessing the platform via the YouTube mobile app. Some desktop computer users had also experienced similar issues. The service appeared to have been largely restored as of around 9:30 a.m. The temporary disruption affected some users of YouTube Music as well and was believed to be part of a broader global outage. Google later issued a statement confirming that the disruption has been resolved across all YouTube services and thanked users for their patience. YouTube, operated by Google, is the most widely used video platform in Korea. According to government officials, the service disruption is estimated to have lasted from 8:17 a.m. to 9:19 a.m. The outage was believed to have been caused by an error during a spam prevention system update. Google Korea notified the science ministry of the error at 9:01 a.m. Under current regula

Oct 16, 2025By Yonhap

YouTube service normalized after temporary disruption in Korea

Kakao Mobility launches Korea’s 1st robot valet service

Kakao Mobility has launched Korea’s first robot valet parking service, using advanced parking robot technology to deliver a practical and accessible mobility solution. The company announced Wednesday that it has installed a robotic parking system at the parking lot of Chungbuk Content Enterprise Promotion Center in Cheongju, in partnership with HL Robotics, North Chungcheong Province and Chungbuk Innovation Institute of Science & Technology. The service comes as a result of Kakao Mobility’s collaboration with HL Robotics following the partnership agreement in May to commercialize autonomous parking robot technology. “In turning high-precision parking robots into a convenient real-world service, we drew on our strengths as a comprehensive mobility-as-a-service platform,” a Kakao Mobility official said. “We’ll continue to refine our platform to ensure that the benefits of advanced mobility technologies reach everyday users.” To use the system, drivers simply leave their vehicle within the yellow lines of the designated robot valet zone. After verifying their license plate and

Oct 16, 2025By Lee Gyu-lee

Kakao Mobility launches Korea’s 1st robot valet service

BlackRock, Nvidia-backed group strikes $40 bil. data center deal to fuel AI boom

An investment consortium that includes BlackRock, Nvidia, xAI and Microsoft will acquire Aligned Data Centers in a deal worth $40 billion, the companies said on Wednesday. The deal underscores an intensifying race to expand the costly, supply-constrained infrastructure required to power artificial intelligence technology, as companies rush to build the most sophisticated AI models. The acquisition follows a slew of mega-deals focused on securing coveted compute capacity. ChatGPT creator OpenAI has in recent weeks unveiled agreements totaling about 26 gigawatts of computing capacity, enough to power roughly 20 million U.S. homes. The investment consortium, dubbed the Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), has an initial target of deploying $30 billion of equity capital, with the potential of reaching $100 billion, including debt. This is AIP's first investment. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2026. "With this investment in Aligned Data Centers, we further our goal of delivering the infrastructure necessary to power the future of AI, " said Larry

Oct 15, 2025By Reuters

BlackRock, Nvidia-backed group strikes $40 bil. data center deal to fuel AI boom

Science, industry, SME ministries sign MOU to collaborate on AI transformation

Government ministries for science, industry and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to enhance artificial intelligence (AI) transformation across domestic industries, the ministries said. The Ministry of Science and ICT, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups agreed that the government should take an active role as the rapid advancement of AI technology brings a new paradigm across industries, while local companies still lag behind the trend. Under the MOU, the ministries pledged to pool their expertise and capabilities to develop interconnected policies aimed at accelerating the national AI transition, fostering new markets through AI integration and supporting the growth of AI startups and SMEs over the next three years. To ensure effective cooperation, the three ministries will set up a policy council and hold regular technical exchange meetings with experts. "We must combine AI with Korea's manufacturing strengths to develop globally competitive technological capabilities," Scie

Oct 15, 2025By Yonhap

Science, industry, SME ministries sign MOU to collaborate on AI transformation

Google announces $15 bil. investment in AI hub in India meant to drive digital transformation

NEW DELHI — Google announced on Tuesday that it will invest $15 billion in India over the next five years to establish its first artificial intelligence hub in the country. Located in the southern city of Visakhapatnam, the hub will be one of Google’s largest globally. It will feature gigawatt-scale data center operations, extensive energy infrastructure and an expanded fiber-optic network, the company said in a statement. The investment underscores Google’s growing reliance on India as a key technology and talent base in the global race for AI dominance. For India, it brings in high-value infrastructure and foreign investment at a scale that can accelerate its digital transformation ambitions. Google said its AI hub investment will include construction of a new international subsea gateway that would connect to the company’s more than 3.2 million kilometers of existing terrestrial and subsea cables. “The initiative creates substantial economic and societal opportunities for both India and the United States, while pioneering a generational shift in AI capability,” the company

Oct 14, 2025By AP

Google announces $15 bil. investment in AI hub in India meant to drive digital transformation

KT, Palantir CEOs discuss further data platform collaboration

The CEOs of KT and Palantir Technologies held their first meeting in Korea, Tuesday, to discuss ways to expand the use of Palantir’s platform across local industries. At the meeting, held at KT’s headquarters in Seoul, the company’s CEO Kim Young-shub and Palantir CEO Alex Karp reviewed the progress of the two companies’ joint initiatives to deploy Palantir’s data platforms and refined execution strategies to scale these solutions across Korean enterprises. In March, KT inked a partnership agreement with Palantir, becoming the U.S. data processing giant's first premium partner in Korea. It has been aiming to expand its presence in the local market by leveraging KT’s network infrastructure and understanding of Korea’s artificial intelligence (AI) transformation environment. “KT’s collaboration with Palantir will become a success story leading AI transformation innovation across major Korean industries,” Kim said. “We will continue to support expanding effective, data-driven decision-making powered by AI across various industrial sectors.” Coinciding with Karp’s v

Oct 14, 2025By Lee Gyu-lee

KT, Palantir CEOs discuss further data platform collaboration

Naver launches CEO-led task force to drive future tech ventures

Naver has launched a new task force under its CEO Choi Soo-yeon to drive the development and business expansion of next-generation technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), digital twins and smart cities. The company established R-TF, short for Revolution-Task Force, through an organizational restructuring earlier this month. The team is created to leverage the research and technological achievements of Naver Labs, the tech giant’s advanced technology research subsidiary, across Naver’s services and business operations, accelerating the large-scale commercialization of cutting-edge innovations. R-TF will also work to drive the company’s global expansion into business-to-business and business-to-government markets, while leading efforts to develop and commercialize emerging technologies such as physical AI. Naver Labs CEO Seok Sang-ok will head the task force. He has overseen the company’s core technology research and commercialization initiatives. Seok was responsible for the design of Naver 1784 — the world’s first robot-friendly smart building — in Gyeonggi Pr

Oct 14, 2025By Lee Gyu-lee

Naver launches CEO-led task force to drive future tech ventures

Korean tech firms struggle to contain technology leaks

Korean firms are reeling from continued technology leaks, as each case snowballs into losses worth trillions of won and helps Chinese rivals close existing technology gaps. According to the Seoul Metropolitan Police, Monday, its industrial technology security investigation unit raided LG Display’s plant in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, Oct. 2, on suspicion that two of the company’s employees had illegally handed over display technologies to a Chinese company. Reportedly, police have secured evidence including hundreds of photos of the company’s internal documents. The day before searching LG Display, police also raided Samsung Display’s plant in Asan, South Chungcheong Province, following suspicions that the company’s latest organic LED display technologies had been leaked to a Chinese firm. The two cases are the latest in a series of technology leaks across Korea’s high-tech industries, including semiconductors, displays and rechargeable batteries. According to police, there were 27 cases of overseas technology leaks last year and eight more in the first half of this year, most o

Oct 14, 2025By Nam Hyun-woo

Korean tech firms struggle to contain technology leaks

Google Cloud unveils Gemini Enterprise for business AI platform

Google Cloud has unveiled its new global artificial intelligence (AI) platform, Gemini Enterprise, designed to help companies of all sizes leverage a full-stack AI agent that supports the entire workflow. Powered by Google’s most advanced Gemini models, the new platform brings together key features: a no-code workbench, pre-built Google agent taskforce, secure connections to company data, a central governance framework and access to an ecosystem of more than 100,000 Google Cloud partners. With the no-code workbench, users across teams can analyze data, build AI agents and automate processes without writing complex code. Gemini Enterprise connects securely to various enterprise environments — including Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Salesforce and SAP — enriching AI agents with contextual data. A centralized governance framework enables organizations to monitor, secure and audit all agents in one place, while the open network of over 100,000 partners offers flexibility and a wide range of options for business innovation. “Some companies offer AI models and toolkits, but they ar

Oct 13, 2025By Lee Gyu-lee

Google Cloud unveils Gemini Enterprise for business AI platform

Kakao to cut affiliates to 80 by year-end to focus on AI

Kakao is pushing ahead with a significant reorganization of its corporate structure, aiming to further trim its sprawling network of affiliates to streamline governance and refocus on artificial intelligence (AI) as a core growth engine. The tech giant’s CEO Chung Shin-a announced plans to pare down its affiliates from the current 99 to around 80 by the end of this year in a shareholder letter on Monday, continuing her two-year effort to simplify the group’s structure. Streamlining corporate governance has been one of Chung’s top priorities since she joined the Kakao Corporate Alignment Council in 2023, when there were 142 affiliates. By the time she became CEO in March last year, she had reduced the number to 132. It now stands at 99, down about 30 percent in just two years. “Kakao has spent the last year and a half rapidly reforming its corporate governance while implementing companywide cost efficiencies, building a financial structure that allows us to focus on future growth,” the CEO said in the letter. “Based on this foundation, we will begin delivering another wave of