Nexon Pours 250 Billion Won Into Korean Games

*Editor's Note: 'AI PRISM' (Personalized Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an "AI-based customized news recommendation and summarization service" developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. It selects and provides six customized news items by reader type.

1. Future Industrial Technologies Step Beyond AI… H·E·R·O Arrives

- Key Summary: The top 10 emerging technologies selected by the WEF are organized around four pillars: Energy, Resources, Healthcare, and Optimization. Everything-to-grid is evaluated as a foundational technology that will use electric vehicles, ESS, and data centers as part of the power grid, opening an era of "prosumers" in which consumers simultaneously become producers. Precision fermentation, a technology that produces proteins, pharmaceuticals, and chemicals using genetically modified microorganisms, is cited as a core of the future bioeconomy that reduces the land and water needed for food production. Lee Sang-yup, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), explained, "The competition leading future industries is expanding into a battle over who first dominates the power grid, resources, healthcare, and security infrastructure."

2. Latest Model Surpasses Gemini 3.5 Performance… Zhipu AI Market Cap Tops 200 Trillion Won

- Key Summary: GLM-5.2, the open-source flagship model unveiled by Chinese AI startup Zhipu AI, scored 51 points in the overall ranking of global AI evaluation agency Artificial Analysis, placing fourth behind Anthropic and OpenAI. With API call prices at just one-tenth of Anthropic's Fable and one-quarter of Opus, expectations that its overwhelming cost-effectiveness will absorb coding AI demand have driven the stock surge. Revenue from its cloud Model-as-a-Service (MaaS, a business that provides AI models via API) rose 292.7% year-on-year, and as of March this year, its annual recurring revenue (ARR) jumped 60-fold in a single year. However, last year's net loss widened to 4.718 billion yuan, and 220 million shares subject to lock-up are scheduled to be released on July 8, fueling bubble concerns.

3. Nexon Kicks Off 250 Billion Won Investment in Korean Games

- Key Summary: Nexon has jointly formed a 120 billion won strategic fund, the 'KONA Global IP Investment Fund,' with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to discover next-generation Korean game intellectual property (IP). The fund, composed of 60 billion won from the ministry's mother fund, 58.8 billion won from Nexon, and 1.2 billion won from fund manager KONA Venture Partners, is the largest ever among sub-funds in the culture account. Nexon will separately invest approximately 130 billion won more, providing stage-by-stage funding from seed to Series A to top developers with technological capabilities and IP. Lee Jung-heon, CEO of Nexon Partners, said, "We will operate this as a long-term ecosystem investment program to discover next-generation global IP that will emerge during the AI transition."

4. LG Chem (051910) Invests 15 Trillion Won in R&D… Fostering Semiconductor, Mobility, Robot Materials, and Anticancer Drugs

- Key Summary: LG Chem will invest 15 trillion won in research and development (R&D) by 2035, fully launching its transformation into an AI-based high-value materials company. It will concentrate 70% of its R&D investment funds on semiconductor, mobility, and robot materials and anticancer drugs, with annual investment rising more than 40% from the previous 1 trillion won range to 1.5 trillion won. Meanwhile, LG Chem is also pursuing a business model shift into an "integrated solutions company" that designs not only material supply but also the performance and manufacturing processes of customer products. To this end, it has established a new business development organization reporting directly to the CEO and secured investment funds by selling its Water Solutions and Aesthetics businesses.

5. "Discarded Corn Byproducts Into Auto Parts"… Food Industry Expands Into Eco-Friendly Materials

- Key Summary: Food companies including CJ CheilJedang (097950), Samyang (145990), and Nongshim (004370) are making full-fledged entries into the bioplastics and eco-friendly packaging markets based on starch and fermentation technologies. CJ CheilJedang has signed a contract to supply PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoate), a biodegradable material produced through microbial fermentation, to Indian bioplastics company Konspec, while Samyang is developing technology to produce adipic acid, a raw material for automotive interior and exterior parts, from corn and potato starch byproducts. The global bioplastics market is expected to grow from $12.3 billion (about 18.9211 trillion won) this year at an average annual rate of about 29% to reach $94.9 billion (about 146.0701 trillion won) by 2034. Strengthening de-plastic policies such as the European Union (EU)'s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), along with expanding naphtha supply risks, are driving up demand for eco-friendly materials.

6. Personalized Cancer Vaccines, Quantum, Cooling… 10 Technologies Davos Watched

- Key Summary: The World Economic Forum (WEF) opened the Summer Davos Forum in Dalian, China, on the 23rd, announcing the top 10 emerging technologies expected to transform industries and society within the next three to five years. This year's forum theme is "Scaling Innovation," with about 1,700 participants from more than 90 countries discussing the impact of advanced technologies such as AI and robotics on industrial sites and economic structures. Building personal AI agents, the rise of one-person companies, and the expanded introduction of humanoid robots into factories are being treated as key agendas where technological change will reshape economic structures. Lee Sang-yup, KAIST Distinguished Professor and a selection committee member, said the technologies "have the potential to solve the core challenges facing humanity, including energy transition, climate change, future healthcare, food security, AI, and digital security."