Kakao Games posted its seventh consecutive quarterly operating loss as revenue from existing titles declined and the company faced a gap in new game launches. The company is seeking a turnaround under its new co-CEO leadership structure and plans to launch its new title World of Dokkaebi in October.

Kakao Games said on Aug. 5 that it recorded consolidated revenue of 75 billion won and an operating loss of 23 billion won in the second quarter of 2026.

Revenue declined about 35% from a year earlier and approximately 10% from the previous quarter. The operating loss widened from the same period last year but narrowed by about 10% compared with the previous quarter.

By business segment, revenue from PC online games totaled about 22.3 billion won, up 51% from a year earlier. Compared with the previous quarter, however, it declined about 20%.

Mobile game revenue came to about 52.7 billion won, down 48% year over year and 4% from the previous quarter. The company said declining revenue from live-service games and the absence of major new game launches weighed on overall performance.

Kakao Games said it is reorganizing its game business under co-CEOs Kim Tae-hwan and Lee Si-woo. The company plans to review ongoing development projects and focus resources on launching key intellectual property (IP) titles that can drive earnings recovery.

Its first major release will be the mobile massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Dokkaebi. Kakao Games plans to begin pre-registration in August and is in the final stages of development ahead of an official launch in October.

Additional titles are scheduled to follow. Strategy-adventure role-playing game Dungeon Arise is slated for release later this year, while open-world zombie survival simulator God Save Birmingham and MMORPG Odin Q: Valkyrie's Call are expected to launch in early 2027.

The company is also expanding its game portfolio. Kakao Games has secured global publishing rights for PC MMORPG ArcheAge S: Strait of Freedom and pixel-art collectible action RPG Guardian Maiden. It also plans to collaborate with The Grimm Entertainment to develop and publish games based on popular comic and webtoon intellectual property.

Kakao Games said it will continue shareholder-return initiatives alongside its business restructuring efforts. Measures include the cancellation of 500,000 treasury shares, the introduction of a restricted stock unit (RSU) program for employees, the transfer of capital reserves to retained earnings, and purchases of company shares by senior management.

SK Telecom reported a sharp increase in second-quarter operating profit, driven by the absence of costs related to last year's USIM replacement program and continued cost-efficiency efforts. Revenue from its artificial intelligence (AI) data center business nearly doubled from a year earlier.

The company said on Aug. 5 that it posted consolidated revenue of 4.3591 trillion won and operating profit of 566 billion won for the second quarter of 2026. Revenue rose 0.5% from a year earlier, while operating profit increased 67.3%.

Net profit totaled 466 billion won, and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose 17% to 1.4423 trillion won. Capital expenditures (CAPEX) for the quarter were 487 billion won, down 23.3% from a year earlier.

On a standalone basis, SK Telecom recorded revenue of 3.117 trillion won, down 0.6% year over year. Operating profit climbed 70.5% to 427.7 billion won. Revenue at SK Broadband increased 3.6% to 1.1603 trillion won, supported by growth in its data center business, while operating profit rose 44.3% to 132.5 billion won.

Growth in the AI data center business stood out. Revenue from AI data centers reached 136.2 billion won in the second quarter, up 92.5% from 70.7 billion won a year earlier. Compared with 131.4 billion won in the previous quarter, revenue increased 3.6%.

The company said expanded data center operations and submarine cable business revenue drove the growth. AI business-to-business and business-to-consumer (B2B and B2C) revenue rose 24.5% year over year to 61.3 billion won and increased 36.2% from the previous quarter, aided by a growing backlog of AI cloud contracts.

SK Telecom established SK Hyper, a wholly owned subsidiary dedicated to AI data center business development, in July. The unit is responsible for securing data center sites and power resources, building and operating substations, constructing transmission and distribution infrastructure, and attracting customers.

The company's data center roadmap was also reaffirmed. SK Telecom plans to expand its current 137-megawatt data center footprint and begin opening AI data centers with a combined capacity of 5 gigawatts in phases starting in 2029. The company intends to expand capacity further to 15 gigawatts over time based on customer demand.

The company is also expanding its submarine cable business. SK Telecom launched the 10,500-kilometer SJC2 submarine cable system connecting Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore in July 2025. The 12,500-kilometer E2A submarine cable system linking the United States, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan is targeted to enter service in 2029.

SK Telecom also declared a second-quarter dividend of 830 won per share, unchanged from the first quarter. The company will therefore pay a cash dividend of 830 won per share for a second consecutive quarter.

Kakao Games has partnered with The Grimm Entertainment to develop games based on popular webtoon intellectual property (IP).

Kakao Games said on Aug. 4 that it signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with The Grimm Entertainment covering the development and publishing of games based on webtoon IP.

The Grimm Entertainment is a webtoon production company founded by webtoon creator Park Tae-jun. The company owns a number of webtoon IPs that have gained popularity in both domestic and global markets, including Lookism and Manager Kim.

Under the agreement, Kakao Games will be able to utilize comic and webtoon IPs owned by The Grimm Entertainment for game development and publishing. The two companies also plan to expand competitive content IP into games and pursue cooperation in global publishing initiatives.

Alibaba has officially launched Qwen 3.8-Max, its latest artificial intelligence model. First introduced as a preview version on July 20, Qwen 3.8-Max features 2.4 trillion parameters and supports a context window of up to 1 million tokens. Alibaba describes it as the most powerful flagship model in the Qwen family.

Alibaba said Qwen 3.8-Max ranked fifth on the Text Arena benchmark and second on the Vision Arena benchmark, demonstrating advanced capabilities in coding, real-world task execution, research and long-horizon problem solving. The company said the model was designed as a multimodal foundation model with native visual intelligence capabilities.

Qwen 3.8-Max is available through Alibaba Cloud's Model Studio as an application programming interface (API) service. The model weights are scheduled for release next week, and the model is also accessible through Alibaba's all-in-one workplace AI agent platform, QwenWork.

Built on Qwen 3.5 architecture, Qwen 3.8-Max combines Sparse Mixture-of-Experts (Sparse MoE) architecture with a hybrid attention mechanism. Alibaba said this architecture enables large-scale models to generate inference results efficiently.

Under this architecture, only 95 billion of the model's 2.4 trillion parameters are activated during inference. This allows the model to deliver performance on complex tasks while reducing computational costs.

Alibaba also highlighted Qwen 3.8-Max's autonomous coding and long-horizon task execution capabilities, claiming the model can work independently for extended periods without human intervention. In internal testing, the company said the model autonomously completed a real-world software engineering project over a 16-day period.

According to Alibaba, when tasked with building a self-evolving agent framework from scratch, Qwen 3.8-Max established an engineering loop that integrated user feedback, community best practices and self-generated testing data. The model then repeatedly generated code, conducted testing, created previews and analyzed logs before completing a self-evolving agent framework called "oh-my-cli."

The framework has been released as open-source software on GitHub. Qwen 3.8-Max also ranked fourth on the Frontend Code Arena benchmark.

Alibaba further said the model demonstrated problem-solving capabilities in highly specialized fields, including designing novel methodologies that surpassed results reported in existing research papers.

As a multimodal foundation model, Qwen 3.8-Max can transform static input data into dynamic and interactive knowledge structures, according to Alibaba. The company said the model can process hundreds of pages of documents, entire television series or 100-hour livestreams and convert them into searchable and interactive knowledge bases.

Alibaba said Qwen 3.8-Max can be used to edit raw personal footage into polished vlogs or generate immersive educational animations from text prompts alone. According to the company, the model can also reconstruct front-end web projects from a single user interface screenshot, transform 2D floor plans into detailed 3D interior visualizations, and create interactive games through natural-language instructions.

Woorinet, a provider of wired and wireless telecommunications equipment, has joined the South Korean government's Artificial Intelligence Data Center (AIDC) Alliance and is pursuing a national research and development (R&D) project to secure core technologies for Data Center Interconnect (DCI) networks linking AI data centers.

Launched under the leadership of the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT), the AIDC Alliance is a cooperative framework designed to strengthen South Korea's global competitiveness in AI data center technologies through collaboration among industry, academia, research institutes and government organizations across the entire value chain, including AI semiconductors, data centers, networking, power, cooling and software. The alliance is organized into demand, supply and infrastructure divisions. Woorinet has joined the supply division and will participate in the commercialization of next-generation DCI technologies.

As AI models continue to grow in scale, distributed training and distributed inference environments that simultaneously utilize graphics processing unit (GPU) resources across multiple data centers are becoming more common. This trend is increasing the need for backend network infrastructure capable of connecting AI computing resources.

Woorinet said it was selected in May as the lead organization for the Institute of Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP)'s national R&D project titled "Development of AI Data Center Transmission Technology for Horizontal Expansion of AI Resources Across Data Centers." Working with the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Sangmyung University and Pukyong National University, the company is developing ultra-high-speed transmission technologies between AI data centers and pursuing next-generation DCI technologies that would allow distributed AI resources to be utilized as a single AI infrastructure.

For AI data centers, DCI technology requires ultra-high bandwidth, lossless and ultra-low-latency communications, and advanced security capabilities. Woorinet said technologies based on the Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC) standard that can connect data centers located tens to hundreds of kilometers apart without data loss will become a key factor in determining AI infrastructure competitiveness.

To address these networking requirements, Woorinet said it is developing next-generation DCI technologies based on 16-terabit-per-second Packet Optical Transport Network (POTN) systems and wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) optical transmission technologies capable of reliably transporting massive volumes of data.

The company also emphasized that it is strengthening its technological capabilities for building ultra-high-speed, ultra-low-latency transmission environments between AI data centers through proprietary optical transmission and network control technologies, including POTN, Packet Transport Network (PTN), Reconfigurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexer (ROADM) and Transport Software-Defined Networking (T-SDN).

NEXUS said it returned to profitability in the first half of the year, supported by gains related to its acquisition of One Store, while accelerating efforts to expand its platform business and build an artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain gaming ecosystem.

The company said on Aug. 4 that, under consolidated K-IFRS standards, it recorded second-quarter revenue of 5.8 billion won, an operating loss of 5.3 billion won and net income of 8.08 billion won. Compared with the same period a year earlier, revenue declined 37.8%, operating profit swung to a loss and net income returned to positive territory.

NEXUS said the quarter reflected a 15.7 billion won gain arising from the acquisition of One Store, as well as higher platform revenue generated through participation in network operations as a validator. Cumulative first-half revenue reached 17.42 billion won, up 9.4% from a year earlier. Net income totaled 5 billion won, compared with a loss in the same period last year.

On June 29, NEXUS acquired an 89.03% stake in One Store for 62.6 billion won. Following the acquisition, the company reorganized its ecosystem under the "ONE" brand, renaming its mainnet from CROSS to ONEchain and changing its native token from $CROSS to $ONE. It also unified its payment infrastructure around $ONEUSD.

The company plans to expand its AI and blockchain gaming platform centered on One Store. This month, it will launch an AI Games section featuring AI-powered gaming services. In mid-August, it plans to integrate its embedded wallet, ONEpocket, into the One Store application. Later this month, the company will launch a global version of One Store in 124 countries using a single-build deployment model, expanding its international gaming platform business.

NEXUS is also strengthening its content portfolio. Through cooperation with Chinese technology company Tencent, One Store plans to introduce a series of mini-games on its ONEPlay platform, including Run for Survival, Legend of Divine Artifact and Oh! The Cat Is Here. The company also plans to add AI and blockchain games as it seeks to differentiate its content offerings.

Netmarble is revising its long-standing strategy of releasing multiple new titles each year, opting instead for a more focused approach centered on operational efficiency and selective investment in high-potential games.

Speaking during the company's earnings conference call on Aug. 5, Chief Executive Officer Kim Byung-kyu acknowledged that several new titles released during the first half of the year failed to meet market expectations.

"We pursued a strategy of driving growth through the launch of multiple games," Kim said. "However, the performance of our new titles in the first half fell short of expectations."

He added that the company understands investor concerns regarding the visibility of its growth outlook for the second half of this year and beyond 2027.

As a result, Netmarble has reduced its planned 2026 new game lineup from five titles to three. The company now intends to release Solo Leveling: Karma, Shangri-La Frontier: The Seven Colossi and Project Aegis during the second half of the year.

Netmarble reported second-quarter consolidated revenue of 749.2 billion won, operating profit of 80.1 billion won and net profit of 203.9 billion won.

Compared with the same period last year, revenue increased 4.4% and net profit rose 27.3%, while operating profit declined 20.8%.

The company attributed revenue growth to ongoing updates for The Seven Deadly Sins: Origin and the initial contribution from newly launched massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) SOL: enchant.

Overseas revenue reached 580.8 billion won during the quarter, accounting for 78% of total sales. International revenue increased 22.6% year over year and 13.4% from the previous quarter.

By region, North America represented 39% of revenue, followed by South Korea at 22%, Europe at 13%, Southeast Asia at 10%, Japan at 9% and other markets at 7%.

By genre, role-playing games accounted for 42% of revenue, casual games for 35%, MMORPGs for 17% and other genres for 6%.

For the first half of 2026, Netmarble generated cumulative revenue of 1.4009 trillion won, operating profit of 133.2 billion won and net profit of 414.8 billion won.

Compared with the same period last year, revenue increased 4.4% and net profit rose 72.5%, while operating profit declined 11.7%.

Going forward, the company said it will focus on strengthening the performance of existing live-service games while pursuing a more selective new-title strategy aimed at improving earnings stability and sustaining long-term growth.

SpaceX reported stronger-than-expected revenue growth in its first quarterly earnings release since going public in June, but investor attention quickly shifted to the company's massive artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure spending and continued losses in its AI and space businesses. The stock fell about 7% in after-hours trading following the earnings announcement.

For the second quarter of 2026, SpaceX reported revenue of $7.814 billion, up 92% from a year earlier, and a net loss of $541 million. While the company remained unprofitable, losses narrowed from the prior-year period. Earnings per share (EPS) came in at negative $0.09, beating the consensus estimate of negative $0.26.

Starlink remained the company's largest growth engine. Revenue from the Connectivity segment, which includes Starlink, reached $4.291 billion, exceeding analyst expectations of $3.83 billion. Subscriber numbers doubled year over year to 12 million, while segment revenue increased 66%.

The AI segment, which includes xAI, Grok and social platform X, generated approximately $2.6 billion in revenue, representing year-over-year growth of 247%. The company attributed the expansion to the integration of xAI and growing demand for AI computing services. However, the AI division posted an operating loss of $1.26 billion, although losses narrowed from the previous quarter.

SpaceX's third business segment, Space—which includes launch services and the Starship program—generated revenue of $962 million, up 29% from a year earlier, while recording an operating loss of $542 million. Although the AI segment delivered the fastest growth rate, Starlink's Connectivity business was the company's only profitable division.

While revenue and earnings exceeded expectations, investors focused on the scale of SpaceX's capital expenditures (CAPEX). Second-quarter capital spending surged to approximately $18.4 billion, compared with about $2.8 billion a year earlier. Most of the spending was directed toward AI data centers and computing infrastructure. SpaceX argued that the investments are necessary to support long-term growth, but investors expressed concern about the company's cash consumption.

During the earnings call, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Elon Musk said SpaceX could generate $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2030 and suggested there was a "non-zero chance" of reaching that milestone as early as 2029. Musk also predicted that Starlink could eventually become one of the world's largest internet service providers.

"At some point, Starlink may carry a majority of internet traffic" in countries where the service is authorized, he said.

The earnings call drew significant attention as the company's first public earnings presentation following its IPO. However, investor and media reaction was notably cautious. TechCrunch noted that Musk frequently made more aggressive claims than other executives during the call, while senior management often provided more measured interpretations.

One example involved Starlink's future market position. After Musk said Starlink could handle a majority of global internet traffic within a decade, President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Gwynne Shotwell later described the outlook more conservatively, saying Starlink could account for a "significant portion" of global internet traffic in the coming years.

A similar contrast emerged regarding revenue expectations. Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Brett Johnson said annual recurring revenue (ARR) could potentially reach $100 billion by year-end. About 20 minutes later, Musk described the figure as "not a question mark" and suggested it could be even higher.

Johnson attributed the ARR outlook to faster returns on new computing infrastructure investments, $6.7 billion in additional cloud-service contracts scheduled to begin in the October quarter, and revenue contributions from Cursor, which SpaceX recently acquired.

Investors remain skeptical about Musk's long-term targets. The $1 trillion revenue goal was first introduced during the company's IPO roadshow in June, when management discussed 2031 as a possible target year. During the latest earnings call, Musk accelerated that timeline by one year to 2030.

Based on SpaceX's reported 2025 revenue of $18.67 billion, reaching $1 trillion by 2030 would require approximately 54-fold growth over five years, implying a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of roughly 120%.

SpaceX's current trajectory is stronger than that baseline suggests. With quarterly revenue already exceeding $7.8 billion, annualized revenue for 2026 could approach $32 billion or more. Even so, Wall Street projections remain far below Musk's target.

During the IPO roadshow, Goldman Sachs estimated SpaceX's 2030 revenue at roughly $470 billion, while Morgan Stanley projected approximately $330 billion. Both firms served as lead underwriters for the IPO, and even their forecasts were widely viewed as aggressive. As a result, some investors question whether the $1 trillion target represents a genuine internal objective or a narrative designed to support market sentiment.

Despite the stronger-than-expected quarter, the stock reaction underscored investor skepticism. SpaceX shares had risen 9.43% during regular trading on Aug. 4 to close at $125.33 ahead of the earnings release, but subsequently fell about 7.5% to 8% in after-hours trading.

Musk's trillion-dollar revenue vision remains far more ambitious than prevailing market expectations, but investors seeking clearer paths to profitability appeared unconvinced by promises tied to distant milestones and long-term projects.

Coupang Inc., the US-listed parent company of South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang, reported its largest-ever quarterly operating and net losses since its New York Stock Exchange listing, as a massive privacy-related regulatory fine outweighed continued revenue growth.

According to a consolidated earnings report filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Aug. 4, Coupang generated revenue of $8.856 billion in the second quarter of 2026, while recording an operating loss of $556 million and a net loss of $570 million.

Revenue increased 4% from $8.524 billion in the same period last year. On a constant-currency basis, revenue grew 10%.

Despite higher sales, profitability deteriorated sharply after the company recognized a regulatory fine imposed by South Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission.

Coupang said that excluding the approximately $410 million administrative penalty imposed in South Korea, second-quarter operating loss would have been $146 million, while net loss would have been $160 million.

The company swung from an operating profit of $149 million in the year-earlier period to an operating loss. Net income also reversed from a profit of $31 million a year earlier to a loss.

The second-quarter operating loss and net loss were the largest on a quarterly basis since Coupang's NYSE listing in 2021. The previous records were set in the second quarter of 2021, when the company posted an operating loss of $514.9 million and a net loss of $518.6 million.

The latest quarterly operating loss exceeded Coupang's full-year 2025 operating profit of $473 million. Its net loss was approximately 2.7 times larger than the company's full-year 2025 net income of $214 million.

Coupang had already reported an operating loss of $242 million in the first quarter of 2026. With losses continuing for a second consecutive quarter, first-half operating loss widened to $798 million, while cumulative net loss reached $836 million.

This marks the first time that both first-half operating loss and net loss have exceeded 1 trillion won. The first-half operating loss was nearly equal to the combined operating profit of $909 million generated during 2024 and 2025.

Krafton announced on Aug. 5 that PUBG: Battlegrounds and modding platform CurseForge will jointly host a global user-generated content (UGC) contest.

The competition will be divided into three categories: Combat, Survival and Creative. Participants may submit one or more entries and are allowed to enter multiple works across different categories.

A total of 30 winning entries, including the top 10 creations from each category, will be officially featured in PUBG: Playgrounds. The new creative-mode hub will become available through the PUBG: Battlegrounds play menu starting Aug. 12.

The contest offers a total prize pool of $95,000. First-place winners in each category will receive $10,000. Additional cash prizes will be awarded to six community-selected entries and 10 mid-competition standout creations.

Submissions will be accepted from Aug. 12 through Sept. 2. Following community voting, the final winners will be announced on Sept. 14.

JoyCity said on Aug. 5 that it will begin a Prime Open Beta Test (OBT) for Freestyle Football 2, a new soccer game being developed by its subsidiary URE, on Sept. 4.

The upcoming test is intended to serve as a final validation of cross-platform gameplay between console and PC environments before the game's official launch.

The open beta will run for five days, from Sept. 4 through Sept. 8, Korea time. Players can register in advance through the game's official website.

Participants will be able to access the test through PC platforms including Steam, as well as console platforms such as Xbox and PlayStation.

JoyCity also said it will showcase the game at PAX West 2026, one of North America's largest gaming exhibitions, during the testing period.

The company plans to use the open beta and its participation at PAX West to further refine the game and strengthen its position in the global market.

FOW Games, a subsidiary of Neowiz, said on Aug. 5 that it has launched its new mobile massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), Kingdom 2: Burning Battlefield.

Kingdom 2 is a traditional MMORPG centered on character progression through field hunting, alongside cooperative and competitive gameplay content. The game became available at noon through Google Play, One Store, Apple's App Store and a dedicated PC client.

Players can freely combine three playable races—Human, Elf and Belkan—with five weapon types: one-handed swords, greatswords, bows, staffs and spears.

Each race possesses unique skills, allowing players using the same weapon type to adopt different combat strategies depending on their race and build combinations.

The game also features a variety of progression systems, including runes, mana infusion, artifacts and Monster Souls. FOW Games said these systems were designed to provide greater depth and differentiation in character development.

"Magic Dust," a resource obtained when equipment is destroyed or dismantled, can also be used as a material for character growth and enhancement.

Guild-focused content includes housing, research, storage facilities and raid activities. Players can also challenge high-difficulty content such as World Bosses, the Infinite Tower and party dungeons.

To celebrate the launch, FOW Games will hold a 28-day server-level ranking event. Players who achieve high rankings will receive rewards including Legendary Summon Selection Tickets and summon vouchers.

Additional promotional events will be held through the game's official community café and KakaoTalk channel, including strategy-guide contests and channel-subscription campaigns.

LG CNS has been selected to lead the artificial intelligence transformation planning project for 14 airports operated by Korea Airports Corporation (KAC), including Gimpo, Gimhae and Jeju airports. The project will establish the data and system architecture, governance framework and implementation roadmap required to introduce AI into airport operations.

LG CNS said on Aug. 5 that it won KAC's "AI Master Plan (ISMP) Establishment" project.

The initiative covers 14 airports nationwide operated by KAC. Incheon International Airport is not included because it is managed separately by Incheon International Airport Corporation.

Under the project, LG CNS will provide AI strategy consulting, design AI and data architectures, establish AI governance, conduct proof-of-concept testing for key initiatives and develop execution plans for future projects. The company plans to define AI services aimed at optimizing airport operations, improving customer services and strengthening safety management systems.

LG CNS did not disclose the contract value or project duration. However, according to KAC's tender documents, the project is valued at approximately 3 billion won and will run for 365 days from the start date.

Since last year, KAC has been pursuing 50 AI innovation initiatives across airport operations, customer service and safety management. LG CNS will evaluate the feasibility and commercial viability of these projects and develop priorities and phased investment plans.

One example under consideration is an agentic AI-based field safety management service. Under the concept, airport employees could verbally report incidents, after which AI would summarize the information, generate draft reports and recommend appropriate response procedures. The service is not currently in operation and remains a candidate model whose functionality, data integration requirements and technical feasibility will be assessed during the master-planning process.

A key objective of the project is to unify AI initiatives and data resources scattered across 14 airports into a common framework. Before AI is deployed in airport operations, facility management, passenger guidance and safety response systems, the project will establish data standards, access-control policies, security requirements and accountability frameworks for AI decision-making.

Industry observers expect the actual deployment of AI systems to be tendered separately after completion of the master plan and proof-of-concept phase. Through the project, LG CNS could position itself for future opportunities involving AI system implementation, cloud migration, operations and maintenance services.

The contract aligns with LG CNS's broader strategy of expanding its external AI transformation (AX) business.

During a recent earnings presentation, the company said it was broadening its AI portfolio beyond manufacturing and logistics into sectors including pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, airports and aviation, and defense and shipbuilding. The KAC project represents a concrete example of the company's expansion strategy in the airport and aviation sector translating into new business.

Analysts have increasingly pointed to growth from external customers and industry diversification as key drivers of LG CNS's future performance.

Sun Yoo-jin, an analyst at LS Securities, wrote in a report published on Aug. 3 that the company's growth base is becoming more diversified through overseas and non-affiliated customers.

Mirae Asset Securities analyst Lim Hee-seok also said in a report published on July 31 that rising demand for AI transformation among enterprises is likely to accelerate growth in LG CNS's cloud, AI and digital business services segments. He cited the company's expanding non-affiliate revenue base and diversified customer portfolio as key competitive strengths.

Kakao Games said it has no plans to pursue a merger, comprehensive stock swap or any other business combination with Line Games, emphasizing that enhancing shareholder value remains its top priority. The company, however, left open the possibility of future business cooperation between the two game developers.

The comments were made during the company's second-quarter earnings conference call on Aug. 5, where Kakao Games reported preliminary consolidated revenue of 75 billion won and an operating loss of 23 billion won.

Revenue declined 35.2% from a year earlier, while the operating loss widened by 14.4 billion won. The loss, however, narrowed from 25.5 billion won in the previous quarter due to lower one-time expenses and cost-cutting measures.

Management attributed the weak performance to declining revenue from existing live-service titles and the absence of major new game launches.

Mobile game revenue fell 47.8% year over year to 52.7 billion won, while PC game revenue rose 50.5% to 22.3 billion won. Operating expenses decreased 21.2% from a year earlier to 98 billion won.

The company also addressed market speculation regarding a potential merger with Line Games following recent changes in its governance structure. Co-Chief Executive Officer Kim Tae-hwan dismissed the possibility.

"As our chief financial officer stated at the extraordinary shareholders' meeting, Kakao Games has no plans to pursue a merger, comprehensive stock exchange or any other business combination with Line Games. That position remains unchanged," Kim said.

"However, we may consider opportunities for business cooperation that can create synergies. Such cooperation would fall within the scope of ordinary business partnerships," he added.

Kim also stressed that management would place shareholder value at the center of any decision-making process.

"We want to reiterate that, under any circumstances, management will make decisions based on what best enhances shareholder value at Kakao Games," he said.

The company added that Line Yahoo has a strong interest in increasing Kakao Games' corporate value given the significant capital it has invested in transactions involving the company.

Kakao Games also outlined measures aimed at strengthening management accountability and improving shareholder returns. The company plans to secure additional capacity for share repurchases through a reduction of capital reserves.

Separately, senior executives will purchase a combined 500 million won worth of company shares.

The company will also introduce a Restricted Stock Unit (RSU) program for employees. Under the plan, executives will directly purchase shares while employees receive stock-based compensation through RSUs, aligning the interests of management, employees and shareholders.

Kim said the company's performance appears to have reached a bottom and that a recovery is expected to begin with new game launches in the fourth quarter.

"The business is moving past its low point, and we are preparing for a rebound through new title launches starting in the fourth quarter," he said. "The new management team will restore market trust through execution rather than promises."

Kakao Games plans to stagger the release of its key strategic titles beginning with World of Dokkaebi in October.

The company expects to launch three titles in the fourth quarter of 2026, including ArcheAge Chronicles and Dungeon Arise.

In the first quarter of 2027, it plans to release three additional titles, including Odin Q: Valkyrie Rise and God Save Birmingham. The company said the launch timing was selected to maximize the likelihood of success amid a highly competitive MMORPG market.

AhnLab said on Aug. 5 that it has been recognized as the recipient of the Competitive Strategy Leadership award in the Asia-Pacific endpoint security sector as part of Frost & Sullivan's 2026 Best Practices Awards.

The company was selected for the first time as a Competitive Strategy Leadership winner in Frost & Sullivan's evaluation of the Asia-Pacific endpoint security market.

Frost & Sullivan annually assesses companies based on the innovativeness of their business strategies and their ability to create customer value, selecting industry leaders in various sectors.

AhnLab was recognized for its platform-based approach to integrated security operations, its efforts to embed artificial intelligence (AI) across products and services, and its ability to build a threat intelligence-centered security ecosystem.

The evaluation also highlighted AhnLab's transition away from managing individual security products separately toward a unified platform architecture that integrates multiple security functions, including endpoint protection.

Under this framework, threat intelligence generated across different security domains can be shared and utilized collectively, while newly identified threats can be rapidly incorporated into products and services.

The company also received high marks for its AI-driven security operations strategy. Rather than limiting AI to specific features, AhnLab has embedded AI capabilities throughout its product and service portfolio to enhance automation and intelligence across security operations.

Naru Security said on Aug. 5 that it will work with the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) to detect cyber threats and assess security vulnerabilities at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and microbusinesses across South Korea.

The company has been selected to carry out KISA's "Regional Cyber Incident Victim Detection and Vulnerability Assessment" project.

The initiative is designed to continuously monitor enterprise networks and identify signs of cyber intrusions and security weaknesses at an early stage. Based on the findings, participating companies will receive assessments of their security posture and recommendations for tailored response measures.

As part of the project, Naru Security will collect network communication data to detect threats across regions and identify threat actors, operational infrastructure, attack origins, affected companies and the scope of incidents.

The company will also analyze hacking infrastructure and suspicious internet protocol (IP) addresses and validate the likelihood of actual compromise by combining the findings with its proprietary threat intelligence platform.

Internet telemetry and network flow data will also be utilized. By tracing communications between domestic companies and known malware distribution sites or attack infrastructure worldwide, the company aims to identify organizations that may have been exposed to cyberattacks.

Naru Security said it will leverage operational experience from its cyber breach assessment service, ZeroTiCA.

The platform distinguishes between legitimate and malicious network traffic and analyzes connections to command-and-control (C&C) servers, attacker activity within networks, lateral movement paths, the scope of impact and residual threats to determine whether an actual compromise has occurred.

The company added that experts with experience supporting KISA's cyber incident investigation and response operations will contribute their expertise to provide security recommendations tailored to smaller businesses.

Naru Security said cybersecurity at SMEs is critical to the safety of supply chains and the broader national industrial ecosystem. The company plans to apply knowledge accumulated through field operations to help prevent cyber incidents, strengthen corporate security capabilities and improve cyber resilience across South Korea's industrial sectors.

Through the project, Naru Security also plans to expand its breach assessment capabilities beyond large enterprises and further develop customized cyber threat response models for regional SMEs.

LG AI Research has unveiled K-EXAONE 2.0, a large-scale artificial intelligence (AI) model with 750 billion parameters, more than tripling the size of its predecessor while adopting a commercially permissive open-source license.

The institute said on July 31 that it had released K-EXAONE 2.0 on Hugging Face as the second model developed under South Korea’s Independent AI Foundation Model Project, an initiative overseen by the Ministry of Science and ICT.

The model does not activate its entire network for every request. Instead, it employs a Mixture of Experts (MoE) architecture that selectively engages only the components needed to answer a query. The system contains 256 specialized processing modules and dynamically selects eight experts for each token when generating responses. While the model contains 750 billion parameters in total, only 37 billion parameters are activated during inference. The approach is designed to preserve the knowledge capacity of a large model while reducing computational requirements and operating costs.

K-EXAONE 2.0 supports a context window of up to 262,144 tokens and expands language coverage to 10 languages, including Korean, English, Japanese, and Chinese. LG AI Research also replaced its previous proprietary license with the Apache 2.0 license, allowing users to download, modify, and deploy the model commercially.

According to LG AI Research, the model achieved an average score of 70.1 across 24 benchmarks spanning nine evaluation categories, compared with 63.3 for the first-generation model. In the OpenAI-MRCR long-context retrieval benchmark, K-EXAONE 2.0 scored 94.4, exceeding the 93.0 achieved by Qwen 3.5 and the 92.9 recorded by DeepSeek V4 Pro Max.

Within South Korea, one of the most direct comparison points is SK Telecom’s A.X K2 model, unveiled on July 29. A.X K2 is also an MoE model, with 688 billion total parameters and 33 billion active parameters. Like K-EXAONE 2.0, it supports a maximum context length of 262,144 tokens and is released under the Apache 2.0 license.

The announcement did not include direct comparisons with leading commercial AI models such as OpenAI’s GPT series, Anthropic’s Claude, or Google’s Gemini. As a result, the published benchmark data alone does not provide a clear indication of how K-EXAONE 2.0 compares with the highest-performing proprietary global models.

Parameter count alone is also not a direct measure of real-world performance. User experience depends not only on reasoning capability but also on factors such as response speed, operating costs, integration with search and coding tools, multimodal capabilities, and service optimization.

The significance of the release lies in the fact that South Korean researchers have built a 750-billion-parameter-class model, including its training and inference infrastructure, and made it available under terms that allow enterprises to maintain control over deployment and customization.

The model’s competitive standing is expected to become clearer once results emerge from government-led evaluations conducted under standardized conditions, independent third-party benchmarks, and real-world deployment scenarios.

Krafton announced on July 29 that it has launched its first global brand campaign through digital signage at Tokyo's Shibuya Scramble Crossing, one of Japan's most prominent advertising locations.

According to the company, the campaign is designed to strengthen brand recognition and showcase Krafton's intellectual property (IP) portfolio in Japan, one of its key markets for global franchise expansion. The initiative forms part of the company's long-term strategy to build and scale "big franchise IPs" with extended product life cycles (PLCs).

The campaign features 16 major franchises, including Mimesis, which recently surpassed 2 million cumulative copies sold, and PUBG: Battlegrounds.

In June, Mimesis became the first Korean game to receive the Excellence Award in the Game Design category at the CEDEC Awards 2026, presented during CEDEC, Japan's largest conference for game developers organized by the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA).

The offline campaign ran from June 20 to June 26 and also featured collaboration content between PUBG Mobile and the anime series Naruto Shippuden, a title well known among Japanese players. An accompanying online campaign across social media platforms, including YouTube and X, will continue through Aug. 2.

POSCO DX has announced its transformation into an AI-Native Company, built on two strategic pillars: physical artificial intelligence (AI) for industrial operations and agentic AI for enterprise workflows.

The company said it is focusing on expanding physical AI to build intelligent factories where people, AI and industrial equipment or robots work together seamlessly. The strategy centers on applying physical AI technologies to automate and optimize the operation of large-scale industrial equipment through robotization.

POSCO DX said the technology has already been deployed in selected operations. It has applied physical AI to steel mill equipment weighing tens of tons, including overhead cranes that transport steel products, reclaimers that move raw materials in storage yards and ship unloaders, improving worker safety and productivity.

The company is also converting the tacit knowledge of highly experienced operators into core datasets for physical AI, enabling AI to collaborate with human operators in control rooms while managing robots and industrial equipment.

At a press briefing on July 29, Cho Seok-joo, executive vice president and head of the AX Research Institute at POSCO DX, outlined the company's progress in developing physical AI technologies.

POSCO DX is also expanding the deployment of industrial robots in hazardous and labor-intensive environments. The company said it provides end-to-end robotic automation services covering consulting, design, implementation and operations. Together with POSCO, it has developed a platform for managing heterogeneous robot fleets to optimize robot operations.

The company is also designing optimized robotic systems through simulation technologies and developing Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models for humanoid and other mobile robots to improve locomotion and manipulation capabilities.

As examples of practical deployment, POSCO DX highlighted robots that remove impurities from molten zinc baths in galvanizing processes, robotic band cutters used in cold rolling operations and automated guided vehicles (AGVs) capable of transporting steel products weighing up to 65 metric tons. The company is also deploying robotic systems for raw material sampling and logistics automation at plants producing environmentally friendly materials and automotive components.

For office and management functions, POSCO DX is promoting agentic AI through its proprietary Agentee platform. According to the company, Agentee manages the entire lifecycle of AI agents—from recruitment and evaluation to development, promotion and retirement—in a manner similar to managing human employees. The platform enables domain-specific "AI employees" to automate office and business operations.

POSCO DX said its AX consulting services first analyze customer workflows to determine how responsibilities should be divided between employees and AI agents. Based on those workflows, Agentee either creates customized AI agents or reuses existing ones. The company said the platform standardizes every stage from design to deployment, enabling rapid development of enterprise AI agents.

POSCO DX demonstrated several internal use cases, including finance, human resources, labor management and project management. In one example, an AI agent automates monthly pre-closing financial risk inspections by scanning all accounting accounts, identifying abnormal entries and missing journal records, and generating risk reports. The process, which previously required about three hours, now takes approximately one minute. The company estimates that expanding AI agents across all financial closing activities could improve productivity by at least 30%.

POSCO DX currently operates approximately 200 AI agents across its own organization and other POSCO Group companies. It plans to establish standardized AI agent models for the group before commercializing the validated platform for external customers.

The company said it is the only domestic provider with full-stack capabilities spanning operational technology (OT) on factory floors and enterprise information technology (IT) systems.

"Leveraging our expertise across both industrial operations and office environments, we aim to become the company best positioned to deliver physical AI and agentic AI services by integrating advanced AX technologies," POSCO DX said.

At the same briefing, Kim Byung-seok, head of the AI Workforce Task Force at POSCO DX, presented the company's agentic AI strategy.

Separately, POSCO Group has adopted a Mission-oriented AI Transformation (AX) strategy centered on three pillars—process, work and value—to accelerate AI adoption across the group.

At the POSCO CEO Investor Day held on July 2, the group unveiled its Triple-Core growth strategy spanning industrial resources (steel), strategic resources (including lithium, cathode and anode materials, and rare earth elements) and energy resources (LNG and renewable energy). The group also announced plans to expand into physical AI for process industries by leveraging decades of experience in factory automation, intelligent manufacturing and large-scale industrial data.

The POSCO CEO Investor Day is the group's annual investor relations event, where the chairman and senior executives present long-term growth strategies, future business plans and financial targets to shareholders, institutional investors and securities analysts.

Autonomous trucking startup Mars Auto has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Korea Post Logistics Support Foundation and logistics company Logisquare to accelerate the adoption of autonomous driving technologies for commercial freight transportation. The partnership will expand paid autonomous freight services within Korea Post's logistics network while using real-world driving data to enhance the company's end-to-end (E2E) autonomous driving AI model.

The three-way agreement is part of the South Korean government's national AI initiative, "Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV) Transformation and AI-Based End-to-End Autonomous Driving Model Advancement." In November last year, Mars Auto was selected by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources and the Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT) to lead a project developing E2E AI-based autonomous freight transportation technology for heavy-duty trucks. The project has a total budget of 18.2 billion won and is being carried out by a consortium of 13 organizations, including the Korea Post Logistics Support Foundation and Logisquare.

Under the partnership, Mars Auto will install its Copilot autonomous driving system on postal freight vehicles operated by the Korea Post Logistics Support Foundation, while Logisquare will oversee operations for autonomous commercial freight routes. By collecting diverse real-world driving data from heavy-duty truck drivers, the partners aim to improve E2E AI performance while increasing operational efficiency and safety through fuel savings of more than 10% and reduced driver fatigue during long-distance and nighttime operations.

Postal freight vehicles equipped with Mars Auto's Copilot system will operate on major highways and local roads connecting 22 regional mail processing centers and approximately 3,700 post offices across South Korea. Because the system is not limited to a specific vehicle manufacturer or truck model, it can collect driving data from a broad range of commercial vehicles. The data will be transmitted in real time over SK Telecom's wireless network to the National AI Project training infrastructure located in Yeongdeungpo, Seoul. Copilot has already been installed on 20 postal freight vehicles, with additional deployments planned.

Mars Auto's autonomous driving technology relies on AI and camera-based sensors rather than LiDAR or high-definition (HD) maps. The company believes the quantity and quality of real-world driving data are critical to improving AI performance and said the partnership will support its goal of commercializing Level 4 fully autonomous driving.

Separately, on July 20, Mars Auto became the first company in South Korea to receive government approval to launch an autonomous trailer business under the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's mobility regulatory sandbox program.