Brokerages Bet 1 Trillion Won on Secondary Venture Deals

* Editor's Note: AI PRISM (Personalized Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an artificial intelligence-based personalized news recommendation and summary service developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. It selects and provides six tailored news items for each reader type.

1. Securities Industry to Pour Up to 1 Trillion Won Into Venture Exit Market as Secondary Investment Begins in Earnest

- Key Summary: The Korea Financial Investment Association and the securities industry said on the 31st that they will pursue about 1 trillion won in venture secondary investments over the next three years. Secondary investment refers to buying stakes in unlisted companies held by existing venture funds or investors, providing them with an exit opportunity. Seven mega IBs that operate issuance notes or integrated investment account (IMA) businesses will supply 618.5 billion won individually, joined by a 300 billion won joint fund financed by the top 15 brokerages by operating profit last year and the association. Hwang Sung-yeop, chairman of the association, said it will continue efforts to revitalize the venture exit market and expand the supply of risk capital. Including contributions from related institutions, the total funding is expected to reach up to 2 trillion won.

2. Korea's Self-Driving Sector Still in Infancy: "Start With Insurance, Prepare Vertical Integration"

- Key Summary: Korea's autonomous driving test data shows a wide gap with global leaders. Tesla's supervised full self-driving (FSD) cumulative mileage approaches 22.5 billion kilometers and China's Baidu Apollo Go has surpassed 350 million kilometers, while cumulative mileage across 55 pilot operation districts nationwide stood at just 13.06 million kilometers as of July last year. In response, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport designated Gwangju as an autonomous driving test city and deployed 200 vehicles, with plans to expand to three test districts and 3,000 vehicles next year. Chae Sang-mi, a professor of business administration at Ewha Womans University, said no products exist because of insufficient data for calculating premium rates and called for the design of policy insurance, while Jwa Eun-hyuk, a professor of future mobility at Seoul National University, proposed Beijing-style phased approval of commercial operation as an alternative.

3. NC AI in Saudi Arabia Showcases Korean Full-Stack AI

- Key Summary: NC AI said on the 31st that it will participate in LEAP 2026, a global technology exhibition in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and operate a Korean full-stack AI consortium pavilion. LEAP 2026 is hosted by Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) and the Saudi Data and AI Authority (SDAIA), drawing more than 201,000 visitors from 203 countries this year and about 1,000 speakers including AMD Chief Executive Lisa Su. The joint pavilion also includes Megazone Cloud, Upstage, FuriosaAI and Uracle, presenting technology spanning AI chips, cloud and infrastructure, and AI models. Lee Yeon-soo, chief executive of NC AI, said the company will introduce technology proven in industrial settings to the global stage and produce tangible results with local partners.

4. Learning Through an "AI Knowledge Tree" Instead of Textbooks: Systematic Support From Research to Commercialization

- Key Summary: The Future Learning Center at Zhejiang University's Zijingang Campus in Hangzhou, China, was opened to The Seoul Economic Daily, the first Korean media outlet to visit. When a student poses a question there, an in-house "AI Knowledge Tree" built on a large language model (LLM) breaks it down into solvable units to aid learning. One third-year student used the knowledge tree to acquire the necessary expertise and build an ultra-compact wireless guitar, attracting 20 million yuan (about 4 billion won) in investment in April this year. The four-story research building applies AI at each stage of entrepreneurship, from exploring interests through learning, competitions and commercialization with partners such as Huawei, and its 20% startup rate among graduates has earned it the nickname "China's Stanford."

5. Ha Jung-woo: "We Will Back Mega Projects and Resolve Data Center Permit Issues"

- Key Summary: Ha Jung-woo, the new standing vice chairman of the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy Committee, held a press conference marking his inauguration at Seoul Square in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, on the 31st, declaring he will serve as the focal point of the AI transformation. He plans to strengthen government-wide policy coordination and public-private cooperation around the "Three Mega Projects for Korea's Great Leap," built on semiconductors, physical AI and AI data centers. He also identified data center permitting as a representative obstacle and said he will resolve it to rapidly expand AI infrastructure. Citing the risk of dependence on a single company's graphics processing units (GPU), he stressed the need to strengthen domestic neural processing units (NPU).

6. From World Maps to Running: Homegrown Map Apps Move Deeper Into Daily Life

- Key Summary: NAVER and Kakao (035720) are sharply upgrading their map services to reinforce lock-in effects. NAVER added an "Lab" menu to its Naver Map app and rolled out a world map as its first feature, expanding overseas coverage from parts of East Asia and Australia to the entire world. Kakao Map is leading with relationship-based features such as "Run Together," which shares running records with friends in real time, and "Meeting Place," which allows up to 30 invitees. Meanwhile, after the government granted conditional approval early this year to Google's request to export 1:5,000-scale map data, the two companies are responding with vertical services that complete everything from search to reservations and payment.