• Samsung chief Lee to be gifted $1.9 billion in shares from mother SEOUL, October 13 (AJP) - Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong is set to receive 2.6 trillion won ($1.86 billion) worth of shares in the South Korean tech giant from his mother, Hong Ra-hee, further increasing his direct stake in the company.
• Seoul to start govt migration with 10,000 officials moving to Sejong SEOUL, October 13 (AJP) -South Korea’s Financial Services Commission and its financial intelligence unit will move to Sejong in the second half of 2027 under a broader plan to relocate nearly 10,000 government officials and complete the administrative capital by 2031.
• Korean drivers' blinker blind spot prompts nationwide crackdown SEOUL, October 13 (AJP)— It should be a habit for drivers to signal before turning or changing lanes. Or is it? South Korean police are not convinced and launched a nationwide crackdown.
• Korea could be physical AI's Taiwan, Nvidia Korea chief says SEOUL, October 13 (AJP) - South Korea could take over the pivotal supply-chain role that Taiwan plays in data centers once physical AI matures into a major industry, said Jeong So-young, head of Nvidia Korea, on Tuesday. &
• IMF lifts South Korea's growth outlook to 3.3% on chip boom SEOUL, October 13 (AJP) - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) raised South Korea's growth forecast for this year to 3.3 percent from 2.6 percent, as artificial intelligence (AI)-driven demand for semiconductors helped offset the drag from the prolonged conflict in the Middle East.
• Samsung teams up with AMD to ease AI memory bottlenecks SEOUL, October 13 (AJP) - Samsung Electronics unveiled a joint AI memory expansion solution with U.S. chipmaker AMD to address growing bottlenecks in AI inference, building on a longstanding alliance highlighted by AMD chief executive Lisa Su's visit to Seoul last week.

AJP Briefing>

• KOSPI plunges over 5% as foreign selloff batters chip giants SEOUL, October 13 (AJP) - South Korean stocks suffered their steepest drop in nearly two months on Tuesday as relentless foreign selling battered semiconductor giants Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, leaving the KOSPI barely above the 6,000 mark at the close. The benchmark KOSPI tumbled 5.46 percent to close at 6,035.35, marking its steepest decline since Aug. 19, when it fell 5.80 percent. The index opened 3.10 percent lower at 6,186.08 and plunged as much as 7.41 percent to an intraday low o
• Chinese chip challenge pushes Seoul index to 6,000 edge SEOUL, October 13 (AJP) - A Chinese chipmaker’s push into server memory sent South Korean chip stocks 6 to 7 percent at Tuesday’s open, bringing down the main index more than 5 percent. ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), China’s largest DRAM maker, said it expects to release a server memory module by year-end, built on a new chip design that packs memory cells more densely than the conventional layout. Traders read it as a direct challenge to the memory market led by the t

AJP ScaleUP

• Hot Stock: Hanmi shares reverse sharply after obesity drug approval SEOUL, October 08 (AJP) - Shares of Hanmi Pharm and its holding company Hanmi Science fell sharply in late-morning trading Thursday, reversing gains sparked by regulatory approval of Korea's first domestically developed GLP-1 obesity drug. Hanmi Science dropped 7.23 percent to 53,900 won after climbing as high as 68,200 won earlier in the session. The stock had surged 13.94 percent in after-hours trading Wednesday to 66,200 won following news of the approval. Hanmi Pharm fell 9.7 percent t
• KOSDAQ cybersecurity stocks surge as bank hacks raise AI attack concerns SEOUL, October 6 (AJP)— South Korean cybersecurity stocks surged Tuesday as a series of attacks on financial institutions and concerns over the possible use of artificial intelligence (AI) in hacking fueled expectations for stronger security spending. AhnLab, one of the country’s largest cybersecurity companies, which provides software and services to protect computers, networks and cloud systems, jumped 15.58 percent to close at 89,000 won ($65.50) on the junior KOSDAQ. Genians, an

ASIA Insight

• South Korea risks losing a seat in U.S.–North Korea mind games SEOUL, October 13 (AJP) - South Korea risks losing a seat at the negotiating table as Washington and Pyongyang size each other up for a possible return to summit diplomacy, leaving Seoul to confront a growing missile threat with diminishing influence over how it might be addressed. North Korea launched its 16th ballistic missile barrage of the year on Monday while U.S. President Donald Trump, on the other side of the Pacific, floated the possibility of meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un du by Lee Jung-woo
• South Korea rethinks military privileges as medals collide with fairness SEOUL, October 08 (AJP) - Military service has long been one of South Korea’s most unforgiving tests of fairness, with disputes over who serves and who does not capable of ending public careers. Now the government is revisiting a decades-old system that allows selected athletes and artists to pursue their careers instead of entering regular military service, as a shrinking recruitment pool adds urgency to longstanding questions over privilege. Defense Minister Kang Shin-chul told a parli by Kim Hee-su

AJP Watch

• AJP On-site: Korea's physical AI push still borrows its brains SEOUL, October 13 (AJP) - A Chinese-made robot dog knelt on the floor of a Seoul exhibition hall Tuesday, lowered the gripper mounted where its head should be and snapped at empty air, just short of the tissue it was meant to pick up. The robot is a graduation project by Shin Jung-wook, a 27-year-old senior at Korea University of Technology and Education. He wrote the code himself and mounted an arm from Chinese maker AgileX on a Unitree A2 quadruped. It was one of the robots on show at the Ph
• Humanoid ethics: how far have we come? SEOUL, October 12 (AJP) - Silicon Valley's billionaire titans are getting the big-screen treatment this fall — brilliant, eccentric and increasingly cast as villains of the AI era. Films about Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman are turning the people shaping the technological future into subjects of public scrutiny. They call for restraint and warn of AI's potential harm to humanity, yet compete fiercely to invest more and roll out ever more powerful systems. If they canno

AJP Focus

• Samsung stock crash shatter employees' dreams of new homes SEOUL, October 13 (AJP) - Samsung Electronics shares fell more than 7 percent Tuesday to 232,000 won ($173) — nearly 40 percent below their June peak of 374,500 won ($279). The continued slide despite a staggering $80 billion in third-quarter operating profit is unsettling not just shareholders but also chip division employees daydreaming of bigger homes, new cars and early retirement as they await bonuses that could rival the nest egg an ordinary Korean salaried worker spends 30 years b
• Korea Inc.'s delinquencies simmer beneath the chip halo SEOUL, October 12 (AJP) — Strip away the chip halo and stress is deepening across corporate Korea, with overdue loans growing far faster than lending as elevated financing costs push vulnerable smaller companies closer to default. Delinquent corporate loans at domestic banks reached 10.1 trillion won ($7.6 billion) in the second quarter, more than triple the 2.9 trillion won recorded at the end of 2021, according to Bank of Korea data submitted to Democratic Party lawmaker Ahn Do-geol. O