KT to debut disinfection robots in April

South Korean telecom carrier KT, having already launched several robots for hotels and restaurants, is now posed to debut new robots fighting virus infections, laying a basis for its foray into the service robot and rental services business. During a media event held Wednesday, the company said it plans to sell or rent up to 4,000 disinfection robots from April until the end of this year, targeting hospitals, government buildings and welfare facilities. Its autonomous robots, which come in t

March 30, 2022

'AI technology to halve new drug development period'

The technology of artificial intelligence will be used in every step of developing drugs to cut the time it takes to discover a new drug in half, the newly appointed leader of the Korea AI Center for Drug Discovery and Development said Wednesday. “Starting from designing candidate substances, AI technology can set up clinical trials based on biometric data and minimize uncertainty, time and cost by deriving the optimal patient group,” said Kim Woo-youn, head of KAICD at the Korea P

March 30, 2022

Huawei to place R&D first

Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies pledged to put research and development as a top priority to weather uncertainties and maintain its business continuity, as its R&D expense reached the highest in a decade last year. “Both our R&D expense quantity and R&D expense ratio reached a 10–year high last year,” Karl Song, vice president of corporate communications at Huawei, told reporters in Seoul Tuesday. “The harder things get, the more we are investing in

March 30, 2022

[Herald Interview] Samsung CEO’s apology over GOS throttling not enough: US lawyer

A public apology delivered by a Samsung Electronics CEO earlier this month and a software update are not enough to conciliate customers’ anger, a US attorney claimed, urging the tech giant to provide compensation. Customers are disappointed largely because Samsung sold devices that are not what they meant to be and not as premium as they were promoted in terms of phone and battery performance, said David Buchanan, a partner at Seeger Weiss in New Jersey who is suing Samsung on behalf of

March 29, 2022

BIZA Metaversity brings educational institutions together

BIZA Metaversity is AMAXG Group’s decentralized two-way artificial intelligence platform for education. A compound of “metaverse” and “university,” Metaversity expands the scope of educational institutions to the virtual world and brings different institutions together. It is a non-face-to-face web conferencing smart educational platform where anyone can be a lecturer. Educational institutions around the world including elementary, middle and high schools, uni

March 29, 2022

Digital asset NFT trading platform BIZA UVIT pioneers new genre

AMAXG Group’s BIZA-UVIT is a digital asset trading platform for non-fungible tokens (NFT) in content, culture, art, e-sports, movable assets and real estate. AMAXG built strategic partnerships with a number of organizations including the Federation of Artistic and Cultural Organizations of Korea (FACO), the Global Medical Aesthetic Exchange Association (GMAEA) and the Korea Blockchain Enterprise Promotion Association, and is quickly entering the business of digitally tokenizing user&rsquo

March 29, 2022

SK Square unveils W2tr bet on chips, blockchain

SK Square, an investment arm of South Korea‘s third-largest conglomerate, said Monday it plans to spend at least 2 trillion won ($1.6 billion) over the next three years in the field of semiconductor chips and blockchain technology. It is the first time SK Square unveiled its investment roadmap since November, when it spun off from telecommunication affiliate SK Telecom. Under the plan, announced during its shareholder meeting held Monday, SK Square will target chip companies in the Uni

March 28, 2022

SKT to mount 5G MEC solutions on Dell’s servers

US tech giant Dell Technologies and South Korean mobile carrier SK Telecom said Monday they would forge a multi-access edge computing alliance to expand its global 5G footprint targeting enterprise and government clients. Under the plan, SK Telecom’s 5G MEC solutions -- ranging from network virtualization to MEC application for operation and user experience optimization -- will be mounted on Dell‘s servers to meet the global demand for 5G private network infrastructure. Moreover,

March 28, 2022

KT shares hit 1-year high

The share price of South Korean telecommunications firm KT hit the highest level in a year on Friday, as its shareholder meeting and a carve-out of its key business is drawing to a close next week. A KT common share, which trades on the Korea Exchange, hit the 52-week high at 35,300 won ($28.84) during the intraday trade Friday. The closing price came to 35,000 won apiece, up 1.2 percent from Thursday. KT’s market cap on Thursday exceeded 9 trillion won for the first time in seven months

March 27, 2022

LG Energy Solution commits $2b for North America expansion

South Korea’s battery maker LG Energy Solution on Thursday announced plans to build a 4.8 trillion-won ($4.1 billion) lithium-ion battery plant in Ontario, Canada with carmaker Stellantis and a 1.7 trillion-won cylindrical battery plant in Arizona, a first of its kind in the United States. To support the plan, LG Energy Solution approved a combined capital commitment of $2 billion over the course of the construction, which gained board approval Wednesday, showed filings with the Financial

March 24, 2022

Dongnae raises W25b in Series A funding

Dongnae, Korea’s real estate startup platform, said Wednesday it has raised 25 billion won ($21 million) in Series A funding from US and Korean investors. Key investors include NFX, Daol Investment, Hana-Magna, Hana Financial Group, MetaProp, Fursys, Han River Partners, Flybridge, Maple, and WeWork co-founder Miguel McKelvey. “We plan to expand Dongnae branches in Seoul and in the Seoul metropolitan area, like the Pangyo office in Gyeonggi Province,” a Dongnae official said.

March 23, 2022

SK becomes world’s 1st buyer of ‘net-zero oil’

SK Trading International, a subsidiary of South Korean refiner SK Innovation, announced Wednesday plans to purchase up to 200,000 barrels of “net-zero oil” each year for five years from US-based Occidental Petroleum Corp., in a move to use the sustainable commodity for commercial products. The affiliates of SK Group, South Korea’s third-largest conglomerate by assets, will use the oil for products including eco-friendly aviation fuel. SK’s purchase of net-zero oil will b

March 23, 2022

LG opens AI research base in US

LG AI Research, an in-house research hub of South Korea‘s fourth-largest conglomerate, said Wednesday it has opened a new research center in the United States. The center is located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, near the University of Michigan. It is LG AI Research’s first overseas location. The new facility will be led by Lee Hong-lak, chief scientist of AI and professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan. The center’s fundamental researc

March 23, 2022

[ADVERTORIAL] LG Energy Solution steps up ESG

LG Energy Solution is going all out to practice sustainable management in terms of eco-friendly energy, battery reuse and recycling, and responsible management of supply chains. To tackle climate change, the company is reducing energy use throughout its battery production process and introducing renewable energy to minimize greenhouse gas emissions. The storage battery manufacturer was the first in the industry to join last year both RE100 and EV100, global initiatives to bring together busine

March 22, 2022

Korea ‘suffers digital skill shortage’

South Korea is now experiencing a digital skill shortage among employers here as the country -- considered one of the most wired in the world -- is seeing local workers’ digital skills largely outdated in the wake of the cloud era, an estimate showed Tuesday. Over the next year alone, roughly 10 million more people in South Korea are estimated to require digital skills training, according to an estimate by consulting firm AlphaBeta. This is equivalent to some 37 percent of the workforce

March 22, 2022

Apple supplier in talks to acquire LG’s in-car wireless charging business

BH, a local display parts supplier for Apple and Samsung Electronics, said Monday it is in talks with LG Electronics to acquire the tech giant’s in-car wireless smartphone charging business. “Discussions are underway to acquire the in-car wireless smartphone charging business as part of efforts to diversity business portfolio and bolster competiveness,” the firm said in a regulatory filing in response to a news report earlier in the day. According to the report, BH is seeki

March 21, 2022

Sport trucks, supercars go electric: InterBattery shows EV era draws near

The 10th annual secondary battery event InterBattery gave visitors a glimpse of how close the world is to the era where electric vehicles go mainstream. Cars showcased in the three-day event at Coex in Seoul beginning Thursday indicated room for wider applications of batteries, even to the degree of reincarnating the gas-guzzling cars that were once declared dead, and of having exotic cars and luxury cars keep their performance afloat while run on electric batteries. US carmaker General Motor&

March 18, 2022

Samsung, Apple to vie over midrange 5G phones

Samsung Electronics unveiled its new midrange smartphones -- Galaxy A33 5G and A53 5G -- at the Galaxy A event held Thursday, a week after its smartphone rival Apple came out with the latest iPhone SE series. The new lineup is part of the South Korean tech giant’s move aimed at giving Android users access to 5G connectivity at a more affordable price and to lure more people into its own Galaxy ecosystem. “We believe everyone deserves the opportunity to experience the positive impa

March 17, 2022

SK-Netflix battle over network usage fee resumes at high court

Netflix proposed ways to reduce the burden on network providers in the first appellate court hearing over whether the streaming service is liable to pay network usage fees to SK Broadband. The court hearing, held Wednesday evening at the Seoul High Court, is the first since a preliminary hearing took place in December. The case follows a district court ruling in June that gave SK Broadband an upper hand -- the first ruling in the world over which party is obliged to pay network usage fees. Bo

March 17, 2022

Microfilter products certified for removing microplastics

Microfilter Co., an affiliate of water purifier maker ChungHo Nais Co., said 37 of its products have been certified by NSF International for removing microplastics. Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic, less than 5 micrometers in length, that are extremely difficult to detect. They are known to cause harmful effects to human body, including cell death and allergic reactions. NSF International is a US product testing, inspection and certification organization approved by the American Natio

March 17, 2022