Upstage, SKT and LG Advance in Korea's Homegrown AI Contest

* 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.

1. Three-Way Race Among Upstage, SKT and LG: "AI Used in the Field" Decided the Winners

- Summary: The Ministry of Science and ICT held a briefing on the second-stage evaluation of homegrown AI foundation models at the Government Complex Seoul on the 18th, announcing that Upstage, SK Telecom and the LG AI Research Institute had passed. Of the four elite teams, Motif Technologies finished last and was eliminated. In the user evaluation, worth 25 points, the overall average was 17.6 points, and the gap between first and fourth place was 5 points — the widest of the three evaluation categories. Vice Minister of Science and ICT Ryu Je-myung said the government is discussing a plan to completely overhaul its support approach, moving away from a method that selects only a few winners; after a third-stage evaluation, two teams will be chosen as early as the end of this year.

2. Scan a QR Code, Pay for Drinks With a Yen Coin: "Zero Fees" Draw More Than 100 Merchant Inquiries

- Summary: MisePay, a yen stablecoin payment platform for stores operated by Web3 payment firm Sowaka Japan, began a trial run in July at two locations in Tokyo's Shibuya and one in Nagoya. Stores can accept JPYC payments (1 JPYC = 1 yen) by QR code without a separate terminal, and can also manage cancellations, refunds and transaction records. In Japan, a monthly payment volume of 1 million yen incurs more than 25,000 yen in card fees alone, whereas MisePay's payment fees and setup costs are zero yen. Inquiries from restaurants, hair salons, private academies and others have reached about 100, but the fact that users remain confined to those familiar with Web3 wallets stands as the key to wider adoption.

3. Chairman Kitao: "Financial Tokenization Will Become a Huge Wave Within Three Years"

- Summary: In an exclusive interview with the Seoul Economic Daily at the company's Tokyo headquarters on the 18th, SBI Holdings Chairman Yoshitaka Kitao said three years would be enough for financial tokenization to become a huge wave. Financial tokenization refers to issuing and distributing financial assets or rights — such as stocks, bonds, real estate and artwork — as blockchain-based digital tokens. Saying that going forward one must have AI agents, Web3 and blockchain technology all in place, he stressed that passage of the CLARITY Act, under discussion in the U.S. Senate, could be a trigger for worldwide change. He also said that if Kyobo Life Insurance, in which SBI Holdings holds a 20% stake, pursues operating a coin exchange-traded fund (ETF) or tokenizing its holdings, SBI would like to cooperate fully.

4. Global IPO Proceeds Triple, but 42% Concentrated in SpaceX

- Summary: Funds flowing into the global IPO market in the first half of this year reached $205.1 billion (about 289 trillion won), three times the level of a year earlier, Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported on the 18th based on an analysis of data from Britain's London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). The number of IPOs rose just 8% to 689, continuing large-cap-focused trading, while the U.S. share of fund inflows expanded to 75% from 44% a year earlier. In particular, $86.25 billion flowed into SpaceX, which listed on the Nasdaq this June, accounting for 42% of the global IPO market. Meanwhile, European Central Bank (ECB) economists issued a warning that day that a correction in U.S. tech stocks is inevitable. The 30-year Treasury yield also climbed to 5.32%, its highest since June 2007, remaining a variable.

5. Sleep, Heart Rate and 50 Metrics at a Glance: Oura Ring 5 Lands in Korea

- Summary: Smart ring company Oura held a press conference at Lotte World Tower in Seoul's Songpa District on the 18th, unveiling the Oura Ring 5 and announcing its official entry into the South Korean market. Founded in Finland in 2013, Oura is headquartered in San Francisco and has sold more than 5.5 million products in over 45 countries worldwide. The Oura Ring 5 measures 6.09 mm wide and 2.27 mm thick, 40% smaller than the previous generation, and provides more than 50 health metrics — including sleep, activity, stress and women's health — through its app. George Abbott, head of Oura for Europe, the Middle East and Africa and Asia-Pacific, said the company sees South Korea as a key strategic market with high technology adoption and will pursue it aggressively; the product goes on official sale from the 25th.

6. Nvidia Guarantees 150 Trillion Won for OpenAI Data Center; Jensen Huang Rebuts "Circular Financing"

- Summary: OpenAI said it signed a deal with SB Energy and Nvidia on the 17th, local time, to secure 8 gigawatts (GW) of infrastructure at the Ports Pike data center campus in Pike County, Ohio. Under the arrangement, SB Energy builds the data center and OpenAI leases it for 20 years, while Nvidia has signed a residual-value guarantee agreement worth up to $105 billion (about 149 trillion won) for the initial 4.25 GW segment. This sharply scales back an earlier projection of a guarantee of up to $250 billion; separately from the guarantee, Nvidia is investing $1.5 billion in SB Energy. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, in a blog post, rebutted the notion that it was circular financing, calling it a securing of resources based on long-term demand forecasts. But DoubleLine Capital CEO Jeffrey Gundlach argued that assets of uncertain lifespan cannot serve as collateral for long-term debt.