Heekyong Yang

South Korea's government said on Friday it would boost subsidies for electric vehicles (EVs) by 20% next year as part of a package to help the country's auto industry weather risks caused by U.S. tariffs.

South Korea's Samsung SDI has reached an agreement with Tesla to supply more than 3 trillion won ($2.11 billion) worth of ESS (Energy Storage System) batteries to Tesla over three years, the Korea Economic Daily reported on Monday.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang met the chiefs of Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor during his first official visit in more than a decade to South Korea on Thursday, highlighting the company's deepening AI ties with its tech and auto industries.

Samsung Electronics said on Friday it is in "close discussion" to supply its next-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, or HBM4, to Nvidia , as the South Korean chipmaker scrambles to catch up with rivals in the AI chip race.

Samsung Electronics expects demand for memory chips for the global AI infrastructure build-out to far outstrip the company's supply, and said on Thursday it will focus on mass producing its most advanced chips to capitalise on the boom.

South Korea's Hyundai Motor posted a 29% decline in third-quarter operating profit on Thursday as U.S. tariffs weighed, but said it would maintain full-year targets after Seoul and Washington reached a trade deal.

SK Innovation Co Ltd , owner of South Korea's top refiner SK Energy, on Friday said refining margins are expected to remain resilient in the fourth quarter amid global supply disruptions and the onset of the winter peak demand season.

Hyundai Motor broke ground on a 930 billion won ($654 million) hydrogen fuel cell production facility in South Korea on Thursday, as the automaker steps up efforts to strengthen its leadership in hydrogen-powered mobility.

Brian Kemp, the governor of the U.S. state of Georgia, plans to meet with South Korean business leaders this week, including executives from Hyundai Motor and LG Energy Solution, months after an immigration raid in the state detained hundreds of Korean workers, the Maeil Business Newspaper said on Thursday.

The global rush by chipmakers to produce AI chips is tightening supply of less glamorous chips used in smartphones, computers and servers, spurring panic buying by some customers and a surge in their prices, industry executives and analysts said.

Samsung Electronics on Tuesday said it expects its biggest quarterly profit in over three years, as the global race to boost production of AI chips has tightened supply and driven up prices of conventional memory chips, the tech giant's mainstay.

Samsung Electronics is expected to post its highest third-quarter profit since 2022, driven by higher memory chip prices supported by server demand as customers rebuild inventories, analysts' estimates showed.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has praised the legacy of the country's ruling party in a speech ahead of Friday's 80th anniversary of its founding, as delegations from China, Russia and Vietnam arrived in Pyongyang to attend celebrations.

North Korea expressed firm solidarity with Russia's stance on the Ukraine crisis and full support for Moscow's military operations, North Korea's state-run KCNA reported the two countries as saying in a joint statement on Thursday.

Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have signed letters of intent to supply memory chips for OpenAI's data centers, as South Korean chipmakers join forces with the ChatGPT maker to meet rising demand from its Stargate project.

OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman on Wednesday plans to meet with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, who seeks to boost Asia's fourth-biggest economy through a policy of boosting investment in artificial intelligence, the presidential office has said.

South Korea's drug watchdog said on Tuesday it would seek information from relevant companies after U.S. President Donald Trump linked the use of Tylenol by pregnant women to autism, a claim that is unsupported by scientific evidence.

South Korea's foreign ministry said on Saturday it will assess the impact of the U.S. H-1B visa worker changes on South Korean companies and professional workers seeking to enter the United States and with the U.S. side as needed.

SK Hynix said on Friday it has completed its internal certification process for next generation high-bandwidth memory 4(HBM4) chips and established a production system for customers as it seeks to retain a lead over rivals.

Many South Korean workers were sent to the U.S. on questionable documents despite their misgivings and warnings about stricter U.S. immigration enforcement before last week's raid.