Nuri rocket launch postponed to Thursday due to wind

The launch of homegrown rocket Nuri will be delayed by one day to Thursday due to windy weather at the launch site, the Ministry of Science and ICT said Tuesday, a day before the space rocket was to be launched. It is the second space rocket to be launched after the first blastoff last October failed to put a dummy satellite into orbit. Due to the bad weather, the government and state-run Korea Aerospace Research Institute have pushed the transportation of the rocket to Wednesday, and the act

June 14, 2022

Samsung Biologics to build first overseas factory in US

SAN DIEGO -- Samsung Biologics CEO John Rim said Monday the US states of California, North Carolina, Washington and Texas are the strongest candidates the South Korean contract manufacturing organization is considering for its first overseas production facility. Pointing out that some of the US’ major bio clusters are located in those four states, the CEO added that the CMO giant has not made any decisions and is still reviewing options. “We are certainly expanding. The Plant 4 wi

June 14, 2022

LG CNS named top partner for AWS

LG Group’s IT solutions unit LG CNS said Tuesday it has been named as a Premier Tier Partner for US cloud giant Amazon Web Services, a recognition given to the most experienced partners representing their respective markets. AWS offers tiers – select, advanced and premier – to recognize its partners that have proven technical expertise and demonstrated customer experience and the highest premier tier is offered to leaders in their markets in terms of the number of clients and

June 14, 2022

LG Energy Solution unveils W730b EV battery plan

South Korean lithium-ion battery cell maker LG Energy Solution on Monday unveiled a 730 billion won ($567 million) plan to expand production of batteries for electric vehicles here, including the next-generation 4680-type cylindrical batteries, which are bigger than current conventional designs. In an apparent bid to supply to carmakers like US electric vehicle giant Tesla, the company will pour in 581.8 billion won from June 2022 until October 2023 by adding a 9 gigawatt-hour pr

June 13, 2022

Lee Jae-yong regaining appetite for batteries?

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong reportedly met with BMW Group Chairman Olive Zipse last week in Germany in an apparent move to renew his commitment to Samsung’s electric vehicle battery business, as well as its long-held partnership with the luxury carmaker. According to news reports Monday, the Samsung chief’s first stop of his two-week Europe trip that began last Tuesday was Germany. And he held a meeting with the BMW chief at the carmaker’s Munich headquarte

June 13, 2022

AMD’s next-gen server CPU standard signals ties with Samsung

The latest announcement of US logic chip designer Advanced Micro Devices’ next-generational processor standard for data center servers indicates that a collaboration with South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics is imminent. This comes as AMD’s chip architecture in the making is to be compatible with the groundbreaking Samsung-backed memory standard Compute Express Link, in order for the chip platform to go full throttle. AMD hinted at heterogeneous computing by opening up to in

June 13, 2022

[Weekender] Metaverse technologies bring health care to doorsteps

South Korea’s health care sector is breaking physical barriers with the rise of the metaverse and its core technologies -- virtual reality and artificial intelligence. As the COVID-19 pandemic has limited most offline interactions for the past two years, metaverse technologies that ultimately envision a shared virtual space where people can interact with each other and carry out lifelike activities and tasks have been brought to the fore. Unlike the traditional health care sector that

June 11, 2022

Samsung chief’s brother-in-law elected first Asian ISU President

Kim Jae-youl, a council member of the International Skating Union, was elected president of the organization at the ISU Congress held on Friday in Phuket, Thailand. Kim, the brother-in-law of tech giant Samsung’s de facto leader Lee Jae-yong, has become the first non-European to lead the ISU since its foundation in 1892. The candidate from South Korea is a short-track speed skating powerhouse who won 77 out of 119 possible votes. Kim will serve as ISU president until 2026. He earlier p

June 10, 2022

Police decline to refer Samsung chief to prosecution for alleged employment violation

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong has steered clear of a legal risk involving his alleged violation of a restriction on his employment that is effective until 2026. The Seoul Metropolitan Police decided not to refer the case involving the 53-year-old de facto leader of the South Korea-based tech giant to the prosecution, considering he was not paid for his casual work as an unregistered director, according to activist groups on Friday. Seven civil activist groups, including the C

June 10, 2022

DataStreams to join state-led big data project on infectious diseases

South Korean data processing solution developer DataStreams said Wednesday that it has been chosen as a preferred bidder by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Information Society Agency, or NIA, to participate in a project to create a big data platform for infectious diseases. DataStreams is currently in negotiations with the NIA and is set to officially sign the deal later this month. The project worth 7 billion won ($5.5 million) will create a database to integrate informatio

June 10, 2022

LG Uplus to launch AI voicebot, recommendation tools

South Korean telecommunications carrier LG Uplus is poised to discover more commercial use cases of artificial intelligence, as it looks to launch a voicebot for mom-and-pop stores and a personalized recommendation system for its TV viewers and online shoppers, its data head told a news conference on Thursday. LG Uplus aims to launch a new conversational voicebot service that understands the natural speech of human customers and interacts with them by as early as August this year. This differe

June 9, 2022

KT vows to spend W27tr on network, AI, cloud over 5 years

South Korean telecommunications giant KT said Thursday it plans to spend a combined 27 trillion won ($21.5 billion) in the field of network infrastructure, artificial intelligence and cloud computing over the next five years until 2026. KT, Korea‘s largest telecommunications firm by revenue as of 2021, also pledged to hire 28,000 employees during the same period. The 12 trillion won package will be used for AI, cloud computing and media contents. KT will hone AI-powered products such a

June 9, 2022

Merck completes expansion of OLED facilities in Pyeongtaek

Merck Korea, the local subsidiary of the German science and technology giant, said Thursday that it has completed expansion work of its local production plant in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province. In October 2020, the company announced plans to invest 20 million euros ($21 million) into expanding facilities at the plant to produce key materials for organic light-emitting diode displays that had been imported from Germany. “We can now quickly respond to customer requests and demands in Asia

June 9, 2022

SK hynix to supply industry’s first HBM3 chip to Nvidia

SK hynix said Thursday it has started mass production of HBM3, the world’s best-performing DRAM, or dynamic random access memory, product, with the first batch being supplied to US chip giant Nvidia. Referring to high-bandwidth memory, the latest development vertically interconnects multiple DRAM chips, drastically increasing data processing speed compared to traditional DRAM chips. The latest HBM3 DRAM is the fourth generation of its HBM product. SK hynix, the world’s second-lar

June 9, 2022

LG Chem rises to world’s No. 3 chemical brand

Petrochemicals-to-battery materials company LG Chem has become the third most valuable chemical brand in the world, up a notch from a year earlier, data showed Wednesday. LG Chem’s brand value, estimated at $4.3 billion, followed that of Germany-based BASF and Saudi Arabia-based Sabic, according to London-headquartered consulting firm Brand Finance. LG Chem’s brand valuation rose over 19 percent compared to the estimate of the previous year. This is the highest point LG Chem has

June 8, 2022

All eyes on Lee Jae-yong’s Europe trip

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong on Tuesday left for Europe, home to key partners of the world’s largest memory chip maker’s renewed push for chip supremacy.  Upon his departure from Seoul’s Gimpo Airport earlier in the day, some 50 journalists shouted questions on the purpose of the trip and plans for any new deals, but the Samsung chief declined to answer any of them. Lee’s Europe trip comes six months after his last trip to the Middle East in Dec

June 7, 2022

Samsung’s Lee Jae-yong poised for 2-week trip to Europe

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong is poised to embark on a two-week trip to Europe on Tuesday, highlighting the South Korean chip-to-consumer electronics giant’s need for a breakthrough. Also under the spotlight is whether the largest conglomerate in Korea would be looking to secure a new growth driver in Europe, coupled with Samsung‘s fresh investment pledge announced earlier in May. The Seoul Central District Court on Thursday approved Lee’s absence from the t

June 6, 2022

[From the Scene] 'Danuri' all set for Korea's first moon exploration

DAEJEON -- South Korea is gearing up to become the seventh nation in the world to carry out a lunar probe mission with its first lunar orbiter set for an Aug. 2 launch. The country's first lunar mission, which has been named "Danuri" through a nationwide naming contest, has completed the final stages of space tests including durability checkups against extreme temperatures and electromagnetic waves at the Korea Aerospace Research Institute. It is waiting to be transported to its laun

June 6, 2022

AI uses digital waste for upcycled clothing design

Tilda, a virtual artist powered by the artificial intelligence engine of South Korean conglomerate LG, has showcased 30 upcycled clothing designs on World Environment Day that fell on Sunday, according to the company Monday. The collection on the metaverse comprising 13 jackets, 14 trousers and three hats, dubbed the “Digital Upcycling Project,” was designed to highlight using digital waste to reduce carbon footprint. In its first solo fashion collection, Tilda combined digital w

June 6, 2022

Rsquare makes foray into Singapore’s real estate market

South Korean real estate platform Rsquare said Thursday it has collected over 65,000 pieces of commercial real estate data in Singapore, officially launching its business in the major Asia-Pacific hub. The company has compiled both quantitative and qualitative data on office buildings, hotels, distribution centers, factories and other commercial buildings in Singapore’s principal districts. “Just like in South Korea and Vietnam, our employees went on foot, visited office buildings

June 2, 2022