▲ AI PRISM* Personalized Economic Briefing
* Editor's note: AI PRISM (Personalized Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an AI-based personalized news recommendation and summarization service developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. It selects and provides six tailored news items by reader type.
[Key Issue Briefing]
■ Anthropic IPO Expectations: Some investors in U.S. AI startup Anthropic expect the company to secure a record-high valuation when it goes public this fall. As investors project year-end revenue exceeding 10 times its level at the start of the year, risks are also drawing attention — conflicts with the government, high usage costs and customer defections to lower-priced models.
■ 'AI for All' Bid Struggles: The application deadline for the "AI for All" project, which is developing a free public AI service, is near, but most of the lead operators have yet to finalize their consortiums. With unclear standards on each participant's role, responsibilities and cost-sharing, startups are taking longer to weigh whether to join.
■ Gaps in Korea's AI Ecosystem: Korea's AI model development capability has risen to among the world's top three, but critics say the country lacks the "testing grounds" to grow homegrown models in actual services and industries. While demand to adopt AI is rising fast, that demand is not translating into growth for domestic models and services.
[News of Interest to Startup Founders]
1. Anthropic to Top SpaceX? Investors Eye Valuation Above $2 Trillion
- Full article: https://www.sedaily.com/article/20079172?ref=sedailyEng
- Summary: Some investors in U.S. AI startup Anthropic expect it to secure a valuation of more than $2 trillion (about 2,814 trillion won) when it goes public in October. That would be a record high, surpassing SpaceX, which listed at $1.77 trillion. The Financial Times reported on the 13th that six Anthropic investors expect more than double the current valuation, citing the company's rapidly growing revenue. They estimate that the annualized revenue of Anthropic, the maker of Claude, will reach $100 billion to $120 billion (about 142 trillion to 170 trillion won) by year-end, more than 10 times the level at the start of the year. In May, Anthropic announced its annualized revenue had passed $47 billion (about 66.8 trillion won), and its valuation surpassed OpenAI for the first time to reach $965 billion (about 1,358 trillion won). Still, the company faces risks including continued clashes with the Donald Trump administration, a lawsuit against the U.S. Defense Department after it designated Anthropic a "supply chain risk," and usage costs more than 2.5 times higher than OpenAI's flagship model.
2. 'AI for All' Deadline Looms, but Most Firms Lack a Consortium
- Summary: With the application deadline for the "AI for All" project near, many companies have yet to finalize their consortiums. SK Telecom (017670.KS), KT (030200.KS), LG Uplus (032640.KS), Kakao (035720.KS) and ESTsoft (047560.KQ), which have stepped up as lead operators, had not completed recruiting participants ahead of the application deadline on the 18th. Unlike the standalone foundation model project, which had a clear goal of developing a homegrown foundation model, AI for All spans varied tasks — launching a free general-purpose AI chatbot, providing public AI agents and identifying specialized AI services — leaving each lead operator with differing roles and responsibilities (R&R), a factor cited as the cause. The government will also supply up to 512 Nvidia B200 graphics processing units (GPUs) this year but will not cover labor costs. Operating costs from next year will also depend on the government budget, leaving companies hesitant to join over cost and staffing burdens.
3. Naver Bets on 'Sea-Based AIDC,' Strengthening AI Infrastructure
- Summary: Naver (035420.KS) said on the 13th that it had invested in Panthalassa, an offshore AI data center startup, through U.S. venture capital firm 8090 Industries. Founded in 2016, Panthalassa is developing offshore data centers that generate their own power using wave energy — without a separate power plant or fuel — and use it directly for AI computation. The floating structure cuts land costs and cools servers with seawater, transmitting only the results of AI workload processing to the ground via low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellite networks such as Starlink, reducing reliance on transmission grids and undersea cables. Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon said, "We will proactively invest in next-generation technologies such as wave-based renewable-energy AI data centers to strengthen our competitiveness in multiple ways in the global AI infrastructure market." Naver signed a direct renewable-energy power purchase agreement (PPA) with GS (078930.KS) Wind Power in April this year and acquired a 30% stake in the plant, and is now expanding its investment into power and cooling technologies.
[News for Startup Founders' Reference]
4. From Promotion to Orders and Payments — Karrot-Toss 'Local Alliance'
- Summary: Local community app Karrot said on the 13th that it had signed a strategic business partnership with Toss Place, Toss's subsidiary for payment terminals and point-of-sale (POS) solutions. The core is connecting Toss Place's more than 400,000 affiliated merchants nationwide with Karrot Business Profiles, linking everything from store promotion to orders and payments into a single flow. The two will connect Toss POS with Karrot Business Profiles during the third quarter this year, gradually linking systems so that orders received on Karrot can be processed directly on Toss POS. They will also support Karrot Pay payments on the "Toss Front" offline payment terminal and pursue joint promotions and linked customer management services. Meanwhile, Naver's Naver Pay Connect affiliated merchants topped 100,000 as of the second quarter this year, and an industry official said competition among platforms for the offline merchant market would intensify in earnest.
5. SMEs Ministry to Find 10,000 in Second 'Startup for All,' Doubling Selection
- Summary: The Ministry of SMEs and Startups on the 13th announced its "Second Startup for All Project Plan," saying it would find and nurture a total of 10,000 entrepreneurs. The selection size doubled from 5,000 in the first project, with 8,000 chosen in general and technology fields and 2,000 in the local field. Eligibility also expands from prospective founders and re-founders within three years of starting up to re-founders within seven years. Five key tasks will be pursued together, including expanded support, more incubators and mentors, specialized leagues and stronger fairness in the evaluation system. The second project begins on the 20th of this month, and the ministry plans to select 10,000 people during October and then support their follow-up growth paths through step-by-step incubation and competition programs and links to inter-agency and private support programs.
6. Korea Ranks 3rd in AI Model Development but Lacks 'Testing Grounds'
- Summary: Korea's AI model development capability has risen to among the world's top three, but critics say the country lacks the "testing grounds" to use and grow these models in actual services and industries. As of the end of 2025, the U.S. had 59 "notable AI models," China 35 and Korea eight. In the second half of last year, Korea's AI adoption rate was 30.7%, ranking 18th among 147 countries surveyed and rising fastest. However, among domestic AI chatbot apps in July this year, ChatGPT led with 23.67 million monthly users, while homegrown services A. drew 1.15 million and Wrtn 610,000. In addition, Amazon Web Services (AWS) accounted for 60.2% of the domestic private cloud market, and last year private AI investment reached $285.9 billion in the U.S. and $12.4 billion in China, compared with about $1.8 billion in Korea. Kang Jun-young, a professor at the Graduate School of International and Area Studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, said "
