LG Energy Solution said Wednesday it plans to invest 7 trillion won ($5.54 billion) this year to boost its production capacity in key markets while improving profitability overall by offsetting the impact from supply chain constraints and rising costs. The South Korean battery giant unveiled its plans during an earnings conference call earlier in the day. The big spending, up more than 10 percent from 6.3 trillion won announced in February, will be poured into the US, a burgeoning EV market w

South Korean memory chipmaker SK hynix saw its best first-quarter revenue in history, while its operating profit jumped more than twofold compared to the previous year, despite weakening demand for consumer electronics and external uncertainties such as lockdowns in parts of China and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. According to an earnings guidance, SK hynix logged 12.16 trillion won ($9.63 billion) in revenue for the first quarter, up 43 percent on-year. This beat earnings consensus of lo

SK Inc., a holding company of South Korea’s second-largest business group, said Wednesday it would become a controlling shareholder of local electric vehicle semiconductor firm Yes Power Technix in a 120 billion won ($95 million) deal. The strategic investment involving a share sale and a new rights offering means that SK Inc. will control a 95.8 percent stake in the company. Based in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, Yes Power Technix is dedicated to silicon carbide power semiconductor desi

US chip equipment maker Lam Research on Tuesday opened a new technology center in South Korea, extending its global research network connecting the United States and Europe.  The new center, called Lam Research Technology Center, is located on a 30,000 square-meter site within an industrial complex in Yongin, some 50 kilometers southeast of Seoul. The company has spent about $100 million for the new facility.  With the completion of the new center, Lam Research said its responsivenes

SK Shieldus, the cybersecurity service arm of South Korea’s third-largest conglomerate, is poised to use the proceeds from its imminent initial public offering to pursue cross-border mergers and acquisitions, its Chief Executive Officer Park Jin-hyo told reporters Tuesday. Cloud computing security firms would be the major target for a strategic investment, which would allow the nation‘s No. 1 security service firm to make a foray into overseas markets, Park said. “We are pr

US semiconductor equipment maker Lam Research Corp. opened a technology center in South Korea on Tuesday, which the company hopes will serve as a key hub of its global research and development (R&D) network. Lam Research completed its Korea technology center at an industrial site in Yongin, about 50 kilometers southeast of Seoul, in February this year after breaking ground in July 2020. Lam Research, the world's No. 3 chip equipment maker, said some 100 researchers will work at the center, w

President-elect visits SK Bioscience as drugmaker announces final trial result of the nation’s 1st homegrown COVID-19 vaccine

South Korean researchers have developed a computer that can save data even after the power is turned off, facilitating ways to reduce electric power consumption, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology said Monday. The research team led by Jung Myoung-soo, an electrical engineering professor at KAIST, has invented the Lightweight Persistence Centric System or Light PC, which can retain data regardless of power supply, according to KAIST. KAIST said most existing computers use d

A staff prepares for drink tasting at a discount store chain in Seoul on Sunday, as eating food at public places including movie theaters, indoor sports centers and department stores become available starting on Monday.

The Korea Herald, AmCham Korea to co-host metaverse forum on May 2

The incoming government to be led by President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol is at a crossroads over how its policy support to nurture the domestic chip industry will take shape, as the global chip arms race and state-led support intensifies. On Thursday, presidential transition committee deputy spokesperson Kim Gi-heung told reporters that the committee was briefed about a proposal to establish a state-run research hub, tentatively named Nano Semiconductor Research Institute. Kim, however, said the co

Visitors enjoy a riding experience on next-generation urban air mobility vehicles with virtual reality headgear mounted at SK Telecom’s exhibition booth at the World IT Show on Wednesday at Coex in Seoul. The annual tech event, hosted by the Science Ministry, runs from Wednesday through Friday.

Real estate platform Rsquare mobilizes human intelligence to compile commercial building data in Korea and in Vietnam

A key mergers and acquisitions dealmaker at Samsung Electronics has recently been relocated to join an in-house think tank, fueling speculation about the tech giant’s long-awaited “mega deals” in chips or other growth driver sectors. According to industry sources on Wednesday, Ahn Joong-hyun, an executive vice president at Samsung’s business support task force, was promoted to president last week to lead a future business division at Samsung Global Research. Ahn, 58,

KT Corp. said Wednesday it has restored the voices of patients who are losing their voices due to Lou Gehrig’s disease using its personalized text-to-speech (P-TTS) technology. Based on a small sample of a patient’s voice recordings, the technology replicates his or her vocal tone and manner of speech using artificial intelligence based on deep learning, the telecom company said. When a patient types a message on KT’s Maeum Talk app, the app reads the message in his or her v