▲ AI PRISM* Personalized Economic Briefing
* Editor's note: AI PRISM (Personalized Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an AI-based personalized news recommendation and summary service developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. It selects and provides six tailored news items by reader type.
[Key Issue Briefing]
■ Seafood Data Startup: Chung Young-in, who spent 20 years in the seafood distribution business, founded Sea Life Science Lab in Busan in 2019 to tackle with data the limits of price forecasting that had relied on rumor and experience. The platform, which brings together prices by fish species, import data and price outlooks, is now expanding into a structure that links to supplier recommendations and food-ingredient transactions.
■ Smart Glasses Niche Play: As global big tech firms roll out one general-purpose smart glasses product after another, smaller domestic companies have turned their attention to golf courses, classrooms and care settings. Rather than competing on product specifications, they aim to build a revenue base with use-specific products that reflect the behavior of particular customer groups.
■ Optical Fiber Capacity Shortfall: Although optical fiber has emerged as a core material for data infrastructure in the AI era, one report noted that domestic production capacity is lacking. With the securing of high-value products such as preforms and next-generation technologies delayed, overhauling the policy support system has emerged as a challenge.
[News of Interest to Startup Founders]
1. AI Predicts "Opaque Seafood Prices," Eyeing a Global Trading Platform
- Key summary: Sea Life Science Lab is a seafood supply-chain data company founded in Busan in 2019 with the goal of using data to solve the problem of opaque seafood prices. Chung Young-in, who spent about 20 years in the seafood distribution business before founding the company, once secured inventory on the strength of a rumor that prices would rise, only to take a loss when prices fell. The founder said the company was launched out of a conviction that "with accurate data, needless losses could be prevented." Its flagship service, Sea Chart AI, draws on 373 fish species and more than 50 million data points to provide prices by species, year-by-year import data and future price outlooks, and it is also developing technology for forecasting import unit prices, detecting anomalies in raw-material supply, and recommending alternative species and sourcing regions. The company is also pursuing as its next venture the Busan Global Seafood Trading Platform (BGSP), which would use idle warehouses and logistics facilities in Busan to store seafood from around the world and connect sellers with buyers.
2. Caddie, Secretary, Study Aide: K-Smart Glasses Target Niche Markets
- Key summary: Smaller domestic smart glasses companies have chosen a strategy of capturing niche demand with use-specific products rather than going head-to-head with global firms leading with general-purpose devices. Custom eyewear brand Breezm will release golf-specific smart glasses this October; developed jointly with Voice Caddie, the AI measures the distance between the golfer and the pin, analyzes hole characteristics, and provides voice guidance through speakers in the temples. Fenesia will launch its RG Ultra series aimed at older adults and people with disabilities in the first half of next year. It also plans to provide software that supports app development, allowing teachers to create hands-on content. SeerSLab lowered the barrier to purchase with a device priced in the 200,000-to-300,000-won range that omits a display. Meanwhile, competition in the market is intensifying, with Meta's Ray-Ban Meta arriving in Korea last month, Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) set to unveil a product within the year, and China's Xreal entering the field.
3. "Optical Fiber, a Key Material in the AI Era: Korea Must Build High-Value Manufacturing Capacity"
- Key summary: The Korea Institute for Industrial Economics & Trade, in a report titled "Optical Fiber in the Spotlight in the AI Era: Korea's Current Position and Tasks" released on the 17th, noted that although optical fiber has emerged as a core material for data infrastructure in the AI era, domestic production capacity is lacking. According to the report, demand for AI optical cable grew 77% last year and is projected to grow an average of 26% a year through 2029, while the share of optical fiber demand for data centers is expected to expand from less than 5% in 2024 to about 30% in 2027. Preforms, which require refractive-index control at the nanometer level, are a high-value material that only about 20 companies worldwide can produce, but in Korea only Optics & Communications (010170.KS) is able to produce them; the country cannot mass-produce top-tier premium products, and next-generation technologies (MCF and HCF) remain at an early stage. In fact, Korea's optical fiber exports fell an average of 22.3% a year, from $58 million in 2022 to $27 million in 2025, and researcher Tak Eun-myung recommended pursuing medium- to long-term policy centered on securing high-value preform manufacturing capacity and next-generation technology.
[News for Startup Founders' Reference]
4. Air Conditioner and 3D Printing Firms Eyeing In: Heat Pump Market Heats Up
- Key summary: Domestic heating and air-conditioning companies are accelerating mass production and technology development of home heat pumps in line with the government's expansion of its "heating electrification" program. The Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment will implement a heat pump distribution program using hydrothermal energy as a full-scale program starting next year, and it has allocated 14.45 billion won in state funds this year to support the installation of air-source heat pumps. It also plans to increase domestic distribution from 25,000 units in 2026 to 270,000 units in 2030 and to supply a cumulative 3.5 million units by 2035. With large companies dominating the market — LG Electronics won 450 of the 1,042 households in the total distribution volume in the first half — Kyungdong Navien began mass-producing air-source heat pump boilers at its Pyeongtaek plant last month, and Ohtec Carrier also began mass-producing home products at its Gwangju plant. Small and medium-sized firms are increasingly taking part: 3D printing specialist Link Solution has begun an international joint research project to develop next-generation heat pump miniaturization technology, in which a total of 3.4 billion won will be invested, and heat exchanger maker DTS is also preparing to enter the field.
5. Honda Innovates Car Safety With AI: "Aiming to Cut Development Time by 40%"
- Key summary: Japan's Honda has set a goal of cutting new-vehicle development time by more than 40% by introducing AI agents into crash-safety technology development. According to Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Honda is pursuing an approach in which AI presents multiple vehicle design and engineering revision proposals and a human designer selects the best option, and the first vehicle to use this approach is expected to launch around 2030. The crash-safety field is one in which automakers hold all the data, making AI use unusual, and Honda built its AI agent by independently designing an existing large language model (LLM) for its own purposes. Honda's global sales last year fell 8.6% from a year earlier to 3.439 million vehicles, a second consecutive annual decline, and losses in electric vehicles led to its first annual deficit in the 69 years since it went public. Meanwhile, the advance of Chinese firms, whose new-vehicle development periods run 18 to 24 months, is cited as the backdrop for the move.
- Key summary: LG Uplus and Toss Mobile have introduced budget mobile phone plans that bundle in the benefits of the facial-recognition payment service "Face Pay." Toss Mobile launched five such plans on the 3rd using LG Uplus's network; Face Pay is a service that lets users pay at supported stores without a wallet or smartphone if they register their face and payment method in advance. The plans are structured by data allowance and can be used for between 8,000 and 16,000 won a month for seven months after signing up, after which normal prices of between 20,800 and 43,800 won a month apply. With those in their 20s and 30s making up 56% of subscribers in the two weeks after launch, Park Dae-yong, head of LG Uplus's MVNO business, said that demand is growing in the budget phone market too for differentiated services that enhance the user experience.
