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KT&G emerges as unlikely foreign favorite

So far, 2026 has been as good as it gets for South Korea's benchmark Kospi, with investors piling into chipmakers and artificial intelligence-driven data center plays. But outside the AI trade, few stocks have attracted as much attention as KT&G. Foreign ownership of the tobacco maker recently exceeded 50 percent for the first time in seven years as its shares climbed to a record 190,000 won ($123), up from a 52-week low of 119,200 won. With foreign ownership now on par with SK Hynix and surpass

Jensen Huang courts Korea's AI ecosystem on packed Seoul tour

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's Korea trip has unfolded with fanfare, selfies and a full course of Korean crowd-pleasers — from a PC bang appearance with a legendary League of Legends player to candid talks with the country's top tech chiefs over Korean barbecue. Through Monday night, Huang's itinerary was set to span more PC bang stops, fried chicken, samgyetang and baseball as he discussed next-generation technologies and sought to reinforce Nvidia's collaboration with Korean partners in AI, robotic

Nvidia chief bolsters ties with Krafton, NC in Seoul

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has once again chosen Korea’s PC gaming cafes as the places to meet with the founders of the country’s leading game companies — Krafton and NC — after picking T1’s Base Camp as the first destination during his visit to Seoul on Friday. Huang joined Chang Byung-gyu, founder and chair of Krafton, and Kim Taek-jin, founder and co-CEO of NC, at two gaming cafes located across the street from one another in Gangnam-gu in southern Seoul on Sunday afternoon. The chiefs of Nvidia

Xiaomi design head Li Tianyuan to give keynote address at FAMS 2026

Li Tianyuan, head of design at Xiaomi EV, will deliver a keynote speech at the Future AI Mobility Summit 2026 in Seoul on June 30, the event's organizing committee and The Korea Herald said Friday. The summit, under the theme of "From Motion to Emotion," is set to be held at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, bringing together industry leaders to discuss the future of artificial intelligence and mobility technologies. Li is a renowned mobility designer who connected the heritage of trad

Samsung's top union loses majority status after chip-heavy bonus deal

Samsung Electronics' largest labor union has lost its majority status just two months after winning legal recognition, as workers in the company's non-chip division quit to protest a wage deal that favored semiconductor employees. The Samsung Electronics branch of the Samsung Group Employees' Union had 58,270 members as of 3 p.m. on Thursday, according to the union. That is down by nearly 18,000 from more than 76,000 at the end of April, when it held a rally to vote on a strike. Samsung Electron

Nvidia's Jensen Huang to make Faker his first stop in Seoul

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will head straight from the airport to a Seoul gaming cafe Friday to meet Faker, the League of Legends icon he once cheered for from the stage. Huang, set to land at Gimpo International Airport at around 1 p.m., will visit T1 Base Camp, a "PC bang," or internet gaming cafe, run by esports organization T1, according to industry sources — making the gaming powerhouse his first stop ahead of a dinner with the country's top business leaders. There he will meet all five starte

Kospi plunges 5% on US chip stock rout

South Korea's benchmark Kospi tumbled more than 5 percent in early trading Friday, tracking a sharp selloff in semiconductor stocks on Wall Street after Broadcom's earnings and outlook disappointed investors. The Kospi opened at 8,323.2, down 3.66 percent from the previous session. Losses deepened shortly after the opening bell, with the index falling to 8,190.25 as of 9:15 a.m., down 5.2 percent on-session. The decline pushed the benchmark below the 8,100 mark during trading. A sell-side sideca

Chey deepens AI alliances as Huang heads to Seoul

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won is strengthening alliances with the world's most influential AI chipmakers, holding talks with TSMC Chairman C.C. Wei in Taiwan days after meeting Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. The meeting, held on Wednesday, was the first in-person talk between Chey and Wei since June 2024, SK hynix said Thursday. It came as global AI chip supply chains face growing bottlenecks amid surging demand from big tech companies. The two leaders discussed expanding cooperation in next-generati

NC AI develops welding AI for Hanwha Ocean

NC AI, the artificial intelligence subsidiary of gaming giant NCSoft, said Thursday it has won a project from Hanwha Ocean to develop AI-powered autonomous welding technology for shipbuilding sites. The project involves a vision-based welding model and a collaborative robot system designed to identify welding targets and carry out work with minimal human intervention. NC AI said the technology will be applied to Hanwha Ocean’s commercial and special-purpose vessel production sites, where welding

From ETFs to AI: Park Hyeon-joo maps Mirae Asset's future

Mirae Asset Group Founder and Global Strategy Officer Park Hyeon-joo has outlined a new vision for the asset management giant's next stage of growth, betting that artificial intelligence, digital assets and innovative investment products will reshape the future of wealth management. Speaking at the Mirae Asset Rally 2026 held in Hongcheon, Gangwon Province, Park unveiled what he called "Mirae Asset 3.0," a strategy aimed at connecting the group's ETF business, AI-powered wealth management capabi

Jensen Huang to meet executives from Krafton during Seoul visit: sources

The head of US chip giant Nvidia Corp., Jensen Huang, is expected to meet with executives of Krafton Inc., a local game developer, during his visit to Seoul this week, industry sources said Thursday. Huang is reportedly meeting Krafton's Executive Director Chang Byung-gyu, and other senior managers from the company, though the exact dates have yet to be confirmed, the sources said. The two companies are likely to discuss gaming partnerships related to Nvidia's RTX Spark, a type of semiconductor

AI creators, tech leaders gather in San Francisco for Upscale Conf

Korea Herald correspondent Choi Jeong-yoon SAN FRANCISCO, US — Upscale Conf, a two-day event on artificial intelligence and creative production, opened Wednesday in San Francisco, bringing together creators, filmmakers, technologists and business leaders to discuss how generative AI is changing industries from design and advertising to filmmaking and marketing. Held at The Midway and organized by AI image upscaling company Magnific, the conference features speakers from technology companies, med

Why Nvidia is betting on Korea for physical AI

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is putting South Korea's physical AI potential in the spotlight, with robotics set to top the agenda during his planned visit to Seoul from Thursday. "I think that robotics is very important to Korea, and I hope to be able to contribute to robotics in Korea," Huang said during Nvidia's "Korea Partner Night," held for the first time on the sidelines of the Computex event in Taiwan on Tuesday. "We would always consider investments in Korea, (it has) such a great ecosystem,

AI boom reshapes Korea's status ladder

South Korea's AI chip boom is creating a new class of corporate elite. Jobs at Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, long prized for their salaries and stability, are increasingly being treated as status symbols in everything from college admissions and job searches to dating and marriage, as soaring AI-driven profits transform perceptions of the semiconductor industry. Online, the phenomenon has been dubbed "Samjeon-nix," a portmanteau of "Samjeon," Korean shorthand for Samsung Electronics and SK h

SK chief looks beyond chips to AI factories

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said Tuesday that the conglomerate aims to move beyond supplying AI memory chips and eventually build "AI factories," while doubling wafer production capacity within five years to meet surging demand from the artificial intelligence boom. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of Computex 2026 in Taipei, Chey said SK's ambitions extend beyond its current role as a key supplier of memory chips for AI systems. "Today we produce memory chips for AI, but I want to chal

When AI becomes doctor, therapist and confidant

A post about a woman seeking repeated reassurance from an artificial intelligence chatbot over health concerns has sparked debate in South Korea over how deeply generative AI is infiltrating people’s emotional lives and decision-making. The post, shared on the workplace community platform Remember, said the writer’s girlfriend, who has health anxiety, spends up to three hours talking to Gemini and often worries that minor physical discomfort could be a sign of serious illness. “She asks Gemini t

Project to train AI on skilled workers’ know-how prompts debate over who owns knowledge

Cabinet approves bill to support defense semiconductor industry

South Korea’s Cabinet on Tuesday approved a bill aimed at fostering the country’s defense semiconductor industry, the Ministry of National Defense said. The bill on nurturing and supporting defense semiconductors is expected to be promulgated later this month and could take effect as early as the fourth quarter, after related enforcement decrees and regulations are prepared. Defense semiconductors are key components of advanced weapons systems, but the sector has lacked a dedicated legal framewo

Nvidia's Vera Rubin uses 182% more capacitors, boosting Samsung Electro-Mechanics

Nvidia's Vera Rubin rollout is creating a new winner in the artificial intelligence supply chain: multilayer ceramic capacitors. A Morgan Stanley analysis estimates the MLCC content of Nvidia's next-generation VR200 NVL72 server rack at about $4,320, up 182 percent from roughly $1,530 in the previous-generation GB300 system. The sharp increase is tightening supply in a market where demand is already outpacing production, allowing manufacturers such as Samsung Electro-Mechanics to raise prices an

SK, Nvidia chiefs meet again as AI memory race intensifies

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won met Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang in Taipei, Taiwan on Monday for talks on artificial intelligence memory cooperation, as high bandwidth memory becomes increasingly central to the global AI supply chain. SK hynix, the chipmaking arm of SK Group, posted photos of the meeting on its official social media account, showing Chey and Huang with senior executives from both companies, including SK hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung. The meeting took place on the sidelin