Tech news covering South Korea in August 2023 covered items including, for instance, the government’s funding for tech startups and innovation, Seoul’s Semiconductor Fabless Alliance, a South Korean satellite firm’s launch point in Australia, and more.
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CSET: Assessing South Korea’s Artificial Intelligence Ecosystem
- South Korea: LG Electronics to form $100M NOVA Prime Fund for startup investments, 5 times larger than previous startup fund launched in 2020
- South Korea: Gov’t announces 42 venture funds, selected by 9 ministries, to receive approximately $858M, in bid to boost innovation and support startups
- South Korea: Seongnam city in Seoul launched Semiconductor Fabless Alliance in July with reps from semicon demand and supply firms, industry associations and academia
- SK Telecom, South Korea’s largest telco, makes $100M investment in Anthropic artificial intelligence firm, aiming for multilingual LLM focused on telco-specific use cases
- South Korea’s Innospace and Equatorial Launch Australia ink multi-launch contract for orbital launches in north-east Arnhem Land
“Space firm Equatorial Launch Australia, which hosted three rocket launches by US space giant NASA in 2022, said it had signed a ‘multi-year, multi-launch contract’ with Korean company INNOSPACE.”
“ELA said INNOSPACE would fire orbital rockets from its Arnhem Space Centre (ASC), near the NT town of Nhulunbuy, on the Gulf of Carpentaria.”
“The agreement will see the launch of several INNOSPACE rocket variants each carrying between 50kg and 500kg payloads into low earth orbit from the ASC across a five-year timeframe until December 2028,” the company said in a statement.
- South Korea: Google ChangGoo Program has invested $88M to incubate near 500 South Korean startups to date, in collaboration with the Ministry of SMEs & Startups
- South Korea: Seoul Metro Gov’t to host ‘Try Everything 2023’ startup festival from September 13-15, looking to boost connections with global startup ecosystems
- North Korean hackers believed to be preparing to cash out near $40M-worth of stolen bitcoin, part of $200M crypto hacking haul this year alone for DPRK’s Lazarus Group
On Tuesday, the FBI warned cryptocurrency companies about recent blockchain activity connected to the theft of hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency by malicious actors affiliated with the North Korea-backed Lazarus Group, also known as APT38 and “TraderTraitor.”
The FBI said that over the past 24 hours, it had tracked approximately 1,580 bitcoin — worth more than $40 million — that the North Korean hackers are currently holding in six separate crypto wallets. The FBI said these funds were stolen during “several” cryptocurrency heists.
- South Korea’s NGeneBio, next-gen sequencing-based diagnostics firm, inks MOU with China’s MGI gene sequencing firm, aiming to grow NGeneBio cancer testing products globally
- South Korean Ministry of SMEs & Startups to open K-Tech College for software training and job placements with Korean startups for students from developing nations
- Google for Startups Women Founders Fund to provide equity-free funding and support to women-led AI startups in India, Japan & Korea
Indo-Pacific Tech News, September 2023 edition
ASIA TECH DAILY
All-day tech news updates from across South & Southeast Asia and the broad Indo-Pacific region:
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