Category: K-Now

NCsoft announced on the 11th that it's teaming up with Samsung Electronics on a joint booth at Japan's biggest gaming expo, which opens next week. Tokyo Game Show 2026 runs September 17 to 21.

Visitors will get their first hands-on look at 'Astra: Oratio,' an RPG being developed by studio Dynamis One. The demo runs on Samsung's flagship Galaxy S26 Ultra, whose newly redesigned vapor chamber keeps performance steady even when high-end graphics are pushed for long stretches.

The booth also features Samsung's own 3D display tech, called 'Spatial Signage,' which uses a 3D-plate technique to create glasses-free depth — the image looks like it's popping out of the screen. An 85-inch display at the entrance recreates the elevator inside the game's central 'special district office' building, with doors opening to reveal a life-size character stepping out.

A second, 32-inch Spatial Signage unit sits along the walkway to keep the immersive effect going throughout the booth. Pairing game content with smartphone hardware in a single booth is being read as a way to generate buzz for the new title and showcase device performance at the same time.

SK hynix's management and union hammered out a new tentative agreement on September 9, then held an emergency delegates' meeting the same day before setting a two-day ratification vote for September 15 and 16. The move comes after an earlier agreement, reached last month, failed to pass the union's full membership vote, sending both sides back to the negotiating table.

The core change in the revised deal is how bonuses get paid out. The stock portion of bonus compensation has been roughly cut in half, with cash making up the difference — though employees can flip that and choose to receive more stock, up to the full amount, if they prefer. The company said the change gives employees more flexibility to choose what fits their own circumstances.

The earlier agreement collapsed over pushback against paying out a large share of bonuses in stock. It was voted down by a narrow margin last month, and with AI-driven chip demand pushing company profits sharply higher, how to split the bigger payout between cash and stock became the central sticking point in the renewed talks.

The revised deal also adjusts payment timing and expands benefits. Deferred bonus payments based on last year's results — originally set to be spread out over the following two years — will now be paid sooner, and eligibility for extra home-loan assistance has been broadened to include single-parent households in addition to married couples.

SK hynix's labor and management had previously agreed to pay bonuses based on a set share of last year's operating profit with no upper cap. With this year's profit climbing on the back of the semiconductor upswing, the fight over how to divide a bigger bonus pool between cash and stock became the sharpest point of disagreement between the two sides.

At the core of the deal is a plan to merge Samsung's vast trove of chip design and manufacturing data with Mistral AI's large language model technology to create an AI built specifically for semiconductor work. The resulting system will be rolled out gradually to catch defects early and optimize production processes, with the goal of shortening product development timelines and boosting manufacturing quality.

Notably, the AI model will run entirely on Samsung's own servers rather than in the cloud. Since chip-related information is classified as core national technology in Korea, the setup is designed to let Samsung tap into cutting-edge AI without sending sensitive data outside the company. Samsung says it plans to extend the system across its memory and foundry businesses, and eventually build out an AI ecosystem that includes partners and customers.

Mistral AI, Samsung's new partner, is a French startup founded in 2023 by researchers who previously worked at Google DeepMind and Meta. The company has built a track record of deploying customized, self-hosted AI for security-sensitive industries like finance, manufacturing, and energy, and is frequently cited as Europe's answer to an AI market otherwise dominated by the US and China.

Separate from the technology partnership, Samsung also took the lead in raising new capital for Mistral AI, teaming up with a European private equity firm on the round. Existing major shareholders — global chipmakers and software companies — also chipped in additional funding. The round pushed Mistral AI's valuation sharply higher just three years after its founding.

Global EV and plug-in hybrid deliveries reached 11.8 million units in the first seven months of 2026, up 6.3% from a year earlier, according to market researcher SNE Research's data released Sept. 8. Hyundai Motor and Kia delivered 442,000 of those units, a 24.2% jump that far outpaced the global average. Despite that growth, a faster-rising rival knocked the group down a notch — from seventh place last year to eighth.

The company that leapfrogged Hyundai Motor Group is Chery Automobile, a fast-rising Chinese automaker. Chery delivered 468,000 units, up 34.2% year over year, taking over the group's old spot. China's BYD kept the overall top ranking but actually saw deliveries fall 17.9% to 1.816 million units, with its market share also slipping. Geely held on to second place with 1.172 million units, a modest increase, while Tesla came in third with 943,000 deliveries and grew its market share from the mid-7% range to 8%. Ninth-place Leapmotor surged 67.1% to 418,000 units, nipping right at Hyundai Motor Group's heels.

Regional results told a mixed story. China, still the world's largest EV market by far, delivered 6.366 million units — but that was down 8.2% from a year earlier, and its share of the global total slipped to just above half. Europe, by contrast, grew 29.2% to 2.966 million units, pushing its share up to roughly a quarter of the global market, while Asia excluding China surged more than 77% to 1.114 million units. North America was the outlier, falling 22.7% to 790,000 units — the only major region posting a clear decline.

Industry watchers say a recovery in European sales and rising demand across Asia outside China are what drove Hyundai Motor Group's numbers up. The group plans to keep expanding its share with new models like the Ioniq 3 and Kia EV2. SNE Research flagged three swing factors for the rest of the year: how much further China's domestic market cools off, how long the gap left by the lapsed EV tax credit in the US persists, and whether Europe's growth streak holds up. The firm also noted that as Chinese automakers push harder into overseas markets, competition is shifting beyond raw sales volume toward local manufacturing capacity, pricing strategy and supply-chain resilience.

Kakao is taking the wraps off its AI game plan next month at an annual developer event held at its Yongin campus. Now in its eighth year, the conference carries a slogan built around adding intelligence to the connections Kakao has spent years building, and it's shaping up as the company's main venue for sharing service and technical progress with its developer community.

On day one, CEO Shina Jeong takes the stage to walk through the company's AI direction and the products built around it. She'll be followed by the head of design, who'll cover how Kakao designs services around user context, and the lead of Kakao's unified foundation model effort, who'll detail progress and plans for the in-house model powering its agentic AI push — known as Kanana. The company's CTO will close out with a talk on what it takes to build AI responsibly and safely.

Day two is themed around the moment technology earns trust. Expect sessions on governance, service reliability, infrastructure, and how AI is reshaping the development process itself. Dozens of technical sessions — including ones led by developers from Kakao affiliates — run across the two days, alongside speaker Q&As and networking programming for attendees.

Registration is open on Kakao's official site through noon at the end of this month; attendees are selected by lottery and notified individually in early October. The keynote and other major sessions will stream live online, with full session recordings available on demand after the event wraps.

At a home appliance trade show in Berlin on Sept. 5, LG Electronics HS Business Division head EVP Baek Seung-tae told Korean reporters that talks to sell robot actuators to outside customers have advanced considerably. He said the company is already in supply negotiations with several global tech giants and plans to meet with one of them next month to go over production readiness and technical details. He added that he hoped to share good news soon — a hint that a deal may be close.

An actuator bundles a motor, reducer, and drive unit into a single part that governs a robot's movement — essentially its joints and muscles. Because this one component can account for well over half the material cost of building a robot, whoever supplies it has significant sway over a robot maker's cost competitiveness. LG Electronics first unveiled its in-house AXIUM brand at CES in Las Vegas earlier this year and is now producing an initial run at its plant in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province.

Baek pointed to 60 years of motor-manufacturing know-how as the company's edge, citing high-speed motor technology capable of spinning more than 100,000 times per minute along with design expertise for building parts that are both light and inexpensive. Reducers are a relatively weaker area, so LG is combining in-house development with outside sourcing, he said, and plans to expand its nine-variant lineup — split by power output and size — to fit customer needs.

The actuator push is part of a broader shift for LG Electronics away from consumer sales and toward business-to-business revenue. B2B currently makes up just over 10% of HS division revenue; with built-in appliances and commercial washers already contributing, the company is counting on actuators as a third pillar to push that share higher. LG expects actuator sales to reach the scale of its existing external compressor business within one to two years.

Robotics is also a priority at the group level. Chairman Koo Kwang-mo met with Nvidia's CEO last month to discuss cooperation on physical AI and robotics, and LG Electronics is developing multiple robot platforms, including wheeled and bipedal designs. Baek said the company plans to validate the technology in industrial settings before moving to home use, and that humanoid robots will soon be deployed at its Tennessee plant and its Changwon smart factory.

The awards, announced on the trade show's opening day, saw both companies land honors across multiple categories — a notable feat given that judges weighed not just technical performance but design and market impact too. Korean electronics makers ended up clustered near the top of the rankings across the board.

LG's headline reveal was ThinQ Chalo, a new AI agent that builds on the company's existing ThinQ On smart-home hub. Instead of relying on voice commands, users can simply message the system through the messenger apps they already use — and it responds by inferring their location and movements to proactively suggest actions, like switching on the air conditioner before they get home. It can also fold in everyday details, like a kid's schedule or a photo of groceries, to suggest broader routines for the household. LG plans to launch a domestic beta this month with an eye toward a full commercial rollout by year-end, and says it's also weighing subscription plans and bundled appliance packages down the line.

On the hardware side, LG's ultra-thin, wall-hugging TV took the top prize in the home entertainment category for its picture quality and design, coming in at roughly 9 millimeters thick. A separate audio system that automatically detects speaker placement to build an immersive soundstage won the top award in its own category. Five more products — an upgraded OLED TV, two premium LCD lineups, a portable screen and a party-ready Bluetooth speaker — picked up additional merit awards.

Samsung's standout was its wall-mounted Bespoke Wind-Free air conditioner, which won in two categories at once. Its flat, minimalist front panel with vents tucked along the bottom is designed to blend in like a piece of furniture, while a built-in radar sensor tracks where people are in the room to fine-tune airflow direction. In refrigerators, a model with a large touchscreen and voice recognition won in the design category, and a four-door model engineered to fully open its doors even in tight kitchens won in the appliance category. The large-screen fridge also pairs with an external AI engine — reportedly Google's Gemini — to recognize groceries stored inside.

Netflix announced on September 3 that director Lee Chang-dong has been confirmed as the winner of the Mill Valley Film Festival's Auteur Award. This marks the first time the festival has given the award to a Korean director. The event is organized by the California Film Institute, and the ceremony will take place near San Francisco next month.

Lee's new film, 'Love, Possibly,' was also selected for the festival's Spotlight section, which showcases recent work from filmmakers with a distinctive creative voice. The story follows a laid-off worker and his wife, whose lives become entangled with a documentary filmmaker couple hoping to capture their story on film — unraveling hidden layers of both couples' lives. Sul Kyung-gu and Jeon Do-yeon play the laid-off worker Ho-seok and his wife Mi-ok, while Jo In-sung and Jo Yeo-jeong play Ye-ji and Sang-woo, the documentary-making couple.

Prior to this, Lee had already been notified that he would receive a separate career-achievement award from the storied film festival in Toronto, Canada. 'Love, Possibly' has also been officially selected for the competition lineup at a prestigious European film festival, where it will have its premiere with local audiences this week. It marks the first time in 24 years that a Lee Chang-dong film has competed there, since his landmark work 'Oasis.'

Korean audiences will be able to see the film in select theaters starting September 23, with a worldwide Netflix release set for November 6. The split theatrical-and-streaming rollout is seen as a strategy to reach viewers across multiple channels.

This summer, Hanmi Pharmaceutical closed two global licensing deals back to back, pushing its cumulative deal value past the 5-trillion-won mark. In June, it handed Eli Lilly the rights to a short bowel syndrome treatment candidate, and on August 24 it announced an exclusive licensing agreement with Roche's Genentech for HM17321, an obesity and metabolic-disease drug candidate. The confirmed upfront payments from the two deals alone add up to 375.8 billion won — 1.5 times more than Hanmi's entire operating profit for all of last year.

HM17321, now in Genentech's hands, is a non-incretin drug candidate modeled on a signaling molecule called UCN2 (urocortin-2), and it's currently in Phase 1 trials involving healthy adults and obese patients. Once Hanmi wraps up that first phase, Genentech will take over global clinical development. In exchange for exclusive rights to develop, manufacture and sell the drug everywhere except South Korea, Genentech is paying Hanmi a confirmed upfront fee of 262.9 billion won (~$190 million), plus milestone payments tied to development, regulatory approval and sales that could push the total to as much as $2.3 billion — roughly 3.2 trillion won. Researchers say the candidate is designed to address the muscle-loss side effects seen with existing obesity drugs like Wegovy and Mounjaro.

The earlier Lilly deal covered sonepeglutide, aimed at short bowel syndrome — a condition in which a shortened small intestine impairs nutrient absorption. That drug is now in global Phase 2 trials. The deal is worth up to $1.26 billion (about 1.9 trillion won) in total, including a $75 million (about 112.9 billion won) upfront payment. That upfront payment helped push Hanmi's second-quarter operating profit to 131.1 billion won, up 116.9% year-over-year.

Analysts point to sustained R&D investment as the foundation for this run of deals. Hanmi has funneled roughly 14-15% of revenue into R&D in recent years, with R&D spending climbing from 205 billion won in 2023 to 229 billion won last year, and reaching 125.5 billion won in the first half of this year alone — up 18.2% from the same period last year. Since 2023, the company has run an in-house initiative spanning obesity drug development and easier-to-take formulations, and it's preparing to launch its obesity drug "Efpe" later this year. Analysts also flag remaining pipeline candidates like HM15275 and HM-500197 as possible targets for further licensing deals.

Iran's newly formed strait watchdog, the Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA), posted the names of 45 tankers on X on August 23, warning that vessels on the list could face fines, detention, or cargo seizure for violating transit rules. The roster includes ships owned by Sinokor Merchant Marine, a South Korean shipping company. Local reports put the Sinokor-owned count at five vessels. Sinokor ranks as Korea's third-largest shipping company by revenue.

The blacklist spans a mix of vessel types, from ultra-large crude carriers to LNG and LPG tankers to refined-product carriers. Alongside Sinokor, ships tied to Norwegian ship manager Klaveness, Saudi Arabia's state-run carrier Bahri, the logistics and shipping arm of Abu Dhabi's state oil company ADNOC and its subsidiary Navig8, and vessels from Stolt Tankers all made the list.

The PGSA said it could add more vessels to the sanctions list, including ships involved in ship-to-ship transfers with already-blacklisted tankers, though it didn't spell out exactly which rule each vessel broke. Given that Iranian authorities have long required advance transit permits and toll-like fees from ships passing through the strait, the move is widely seen as connected to that requirement. Vessels named on the list reportedly can still be removed if operators submit supporting documentation.

The crackdown lands as the US signals even harsher sanctions on Iran, reigniting tensions around the Hormuz Strait. President Trump has repeatedly claimed the waterway effectively falls under US jurisdiction. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright has said roughly 8 million barrels of crude oil pass safely through the strait each day thanks to US Navy escorts.