Korea JoongAng Daily - Daily News from Korea

Korean arts institutions struggle with accessibility despite legal requirements. Many disabled visitors face barriers due to lack of effective programming, insufficient staff and inadequate understanding of diverse needs, raising questions about inclusivity.

A few years ago, Chung Young-seok — a wheelchair user who lectures and researches arts management — went to Museum SAN in Wonju with a friend, the very place where another wheelchair user was denied entrance in April this year. They tried to enter the James Turrell hall, which houses one of only a handful of Turrell installations in the world.

There was an elevator, but just as he was about to hop in, a staff member came over and told them they couldn't ride it, without explaining why.

"I could understand if there were no facilities for the disabled at all," Chung said. "But to be told I couldn't use a facility that was already there — that felt like an entirely different problem. It made me realize this isn't about whether facilities exist. It's about how access is operated and how it's understood."

Museum SAN is, by Gangwon's official designation, a barrier-free tourist site — wheelchair rentals included.

The episode, which Chung recounted after last month's incident that ignited a brief flurry of public attention, points to a broader conversation on accessibility that Korean arts institutions have not quite caught up to. The question is no longer whether ramps and elevators exist. They mostly do. The question is whether the access they imply actually works.

Law is there, but programs, less so

Korea has legally mandated accessibility at public buildings since 1998, when the Convenience Promotion Act was enacted, requiring public facilities to install ramps, accessible restrooms, tactile paving and similar fixtures. A barrier-free certification system, introduced in 2008, then layered a voluntary grading system on top of the act, evaluating buildings against more demanding criteria for everything from circulation paths to signage.

The Korea Disability Arts & Culture Center (KDAC) also administers a grant program that funds accessibility content and operations at public exhibition and performance spaces, with awards ranging from 50 million ($34,500) to 80 million won per institution for up to three years. This grant program has also expanded in the number of recipients, with six institutions receiving 500 million won in 2024 and 22 institutions receiving a total of 1.6 billion won this year.

The issue is that physical and programmatic accessibility move on separate tracks — one supported by the state, the other left to whatever budget an institution can find.

To get a sense of how this plays out, the Korea JoongAng Daily asked the country's 20 largest art museums by visitor count to share their accessibility programming over the past five years, as well as their staffing levels.

Of the 20 surveyed, 13 museums responded, and among them, only six could point to more than one exhibition over the past five years that was designated barrier-free from the start. The rest reported accessibility measures bolted onto otherwise standard programming — a sign-language caption here, a tactile catalog there, a braille leaflet at the gate. The National Museum of Korea, Busan Museum of Art and Daelim Museum were among those that did not give responses.

The point isn't to rank. The point is that institutions cannot agree on what counts as an accessibility program in the first place. Even accounting for differences in terminology and reporting methods, most institutions appeared to rely on exhibition-specific or auxiliary accessibility measures rather than long-term operational structures.

A 2024 survey by the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture found that 64.5 percent of disabled residents in the city had not visited a cultural venue in the past year, against 23.9 percent of the general public — a gap that doesn't show up in any single museum's program count, but is the backdrop aga...

Boy band BoyNextDoor built its discography on being close enough to knock.

Three years after debuting as K-pop's boys next door, the six-member group is ready to let listeners in with its first full-length album, "Home" — a milestone that looks back on the shelter it has built so far, but with an unmistakably candid ambition to go "Viral."

"This album carries our own story of leaving our previous home and finding a new one," said member Woonhak during a roundtable interview with journalists in eastern Seoul on Friday.

"We've built a home, a shelter for ourselves, so I hope the album can also become a place where both casual listeners and our fans can rest and feel comfortable," he added with a smile.

BoyNextDoor debuted in May 2023 with the single "WHO!" under KOZ Entertainment, a HYBE-owned label founded by rapper-producer Zico, with members Myung Jae-hyun, Sungho, Riwoo, Taesan, Leehan and Woonhak.

The group built its musical narrative and brand around the members' famously energetic, mischievous personalities, befitting its name BoyNextDoor. The sextet is best known for upbeat, easy-listening hits like "If I say I love you" (2025).

But this time, the mood has shifted — into something more chic, serious and sometimes vulnerable.

"Home," set to be released on Monday, features eight songs: the lead track, "Viral," a prerelease "ddok ddok ddok," and B-sides, "06070," "Adios!," "Upside Down," "Dive," "Forever You," and "I Wonder." The physical album will include an additional track, "I Wonder, Always," which samples "I Wonder." All six members are credited for songwriting and lyrics for the album.

The genuine slice of BoyNextDoor's inner thoughts revealed in the lead track, "Viral," is simple and clear: the group wants its music to go viral, all around the world, until its melodies echo in everyone's head.

"What we really wanted to say as a team was that we hope this song keeps lingering in the ears of people all around the world," said Myung. "So we decided to incorporate our desire to become famous into a more general narrative about love."

The song "Viral" marks a clear departure from BoyNextDoor's previous singles, with a more toned-down, quieter yet intense mood and a longer running time than usual.

"We've indeed wanted to do something different," said Woonhak. "And in a way, I also thought coming up with something different is in itself very BoyNextDoor-coded."

Some songs still carry the group's signature youthful charm and cheek, he said, but the members wanted the lead single to align with the overall concept of the new album, which leans on serious sincerity — especially so because the album marks the completion of the group's first chapter, before it moves to the next chapter, according to the members.

"One thing we talked about a lot among ourselves during the album-making process was that we wanted to make an album that we could listen to and remind ourselves of our original mindset if 20 or 30 years pass after our debut and we ever lose sight of where we started," said Myung.

"So we focused on people who are most precious to us, and the things we consider most essential, which led us to consider this album as a closure of our first chapter."

True to his words, the tracklist for "Home" leads listeners into some of the members' innermost thoughts and most cherished memories. The first track, "06070," takes its title from the old postal code of the training room where the members practiced as trainees, while "Forever You" is a tribute to their parents and the sincere love they have received from them. The album closes with "I Wonder," a fan song for the group's fandom, OneDoor, which, according to the members, represents the destination — the home — where the journey ends.

Fresh off celebrating its third debut anniversary, the group still has much it wants to achieve, explore and say.

"I've been told that babies begin to speak in earnest when they turn three," Myung said. "There are so many things I want to tel...

North Korea's nighttime illumination has increased significantly, reflecting Kim Jong-un's prioritization of key areas for political control.

[A STUDY OF KIM JONG-UN 1]

Feb. 28, 2019, is a day North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will never forget. It is the date of the "no deal Hanoi summit," in which U.S. President Donald Trump walked out of negotiations in Vietnam, an insult the North Korean leader had never experienced before. Could Kim himself have ever imagined that, just over six years later, he would stand shoulder to shoulder with the leaders of China and Russia at the viewing gallery of Tiananmen Square in Beijing in September last year?

Kim's elevated strategic status is a reality. He is no longer in a hurry. Even if Trump sends another overture, his new position would be to casually ignore it. How did the young leader of Northeast Asia's poorest nation, once treated merely as a joke, reach his current position? What choices did Kim make to overcome the failure of the Hanoi summit, and how has North Korea changed as a result of those choices? How has this change altered South Korea's security environment? We must now deal with a Kim of a different caliber. That is why we must study him now. - Ed.

"Let us conserve even a single watt of electricity to the utmost and manage the nation's affairs with painstaking frugality and discipline."

Those words came from North Korea leader Kim Jong-un's New Year's address on Jan. 1, 2014. At the time, the young leader, then about 30 years old, was grappling with North Korea's chronic electricity shortages. A pledge he had reportedly made before taking power — to ensure that people could "eat white rice and meat soup within three years" in 2010 — had already faded from reality.

During the winter of 2014 and 2015, Pyongyang experienced one of its worst blackout crises in years. Foreign media reports said that even diplomatic residential areas suffered such low voltage that household appliances would not function, and tap water remained cold.

Although impossible to independently verify, stories also circulated that officials had been instructed to use desk lamps instead of ceiling lights, while defectors testified that lights illuminating statues of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung would frequently go dark during power outages.

Yet, only days after Kim Jong-un called for a nationwide campaign of austerity, North Korean state media introduced the state-run Songyong Lighting Research Institute, tasked with creating "artistic nightscapes of lights" in Pyongyang and elsewhere. The institute was originally established by his father, the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, but Kim Jong-un elevated its status and renamed it "Songyong," meaning a mystical landscape. What Kim ultimately wanted to perfect with such meticulous management was a brightly illuminated Pyongyang whose dazzling lights would never go out.

Though its capital could not yet be illuminated so brilliantly, this was also the period when projects such as the construction of Mirae Scientists Street in Pyongyang accelerated, and diplomats stationed in the capital began informally referring to the city as "Pyonghattan," a portmanteau of Pyongyang and Manhattan. At the same time, however, newly built high-rise apartment towers often couldn't operate their elevators due to electricity shortages, leading residents to avoid upper floors.

More than a decade later, Kim's vision now appears closer to reality. A joint research team led by professors Kim Ji-hee, an economics professor at KAIST, and Cha Mee-young, a professor at KAIST's School of Computing, in collaboration with Germany-based Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy, analyzed satellite data to measure nighttime illumination levels across North Korea's cities, counties and districts. Their findings suggest that North Korea's nights have changed.

But behind the brighter lights lies an uncomfortable reality. In a country where most regions remain dark like a vast blac...

Chinese President Xi Jinping begins a two-day state visit to North Korea Monday, coinciding with the 65th anniversary of the Sino-North Korean friendship treaty. The summit is expected to focus on restoring bilateral ties and expanding economic and security cooperation.

Ahead of the visit, North Korea has intensified its display of nuclear capabilities. After inspecting nuclear material production facilities, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un continued a series of public appearances highlighting the country's nuclear and missile programs. On Sunday, his sister, Kim Yo-jong, declared that North Korea's status as a nuclear weapons state was "an irreversible red line."

She also rejected reports that Beijing and Washington had reaffirmed their support for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula during last month's U.S.-China summit, calling them "fabricated" and "groundless." The message appeared aimed not only at the United States but also at China, signaling that denuclearization is no longer open for discussion.

The situation differs markedly from Xi's previous visit to Pyongyang in 2019. Even after the collapse of the Hanoi summit between North Korea and the United States, Pyongyang did not entirely reject the framework of denuclearization negotiations. Today, however, the North's position is that the issue should not even be raised.

Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, North Korea has expanded its strategic room for maneuver through closer ties with Russia. Emboldened by that relationship, Pyongyang is pressing not only Washington but also Beijing to accept the reality of its nuclear arsenal.

China, for its part, has strong incentives to keep North Korea within its sphere of influence. Xi's visit could accelerate discussions on economic cooperation, logistics projects and port development. The concern is that the longstanding principle of denuclearization may receive less attention while new security uncertainties emerge in Northeast Asia and the East Sea region.

If China focuses primarily on managing relations with Pyongyang while effectively tolerating North Korea's nuclear development, prospects for resolving the nuclear issue will grow even dimmer. A shift from pursuing denuclearization to merely managing or freezing the North's nuclear program could amount to de facto recognition of its nuclear status.

The Korean government should closely analyze the outcome of the summit and actively engage diplomatic channels with Beijing. At the same time, it must maintain the Korea-U. S. alliance and trilateral security cooperation among Korea, the United States and Japan.

As North Korea continues to advance its nuclear and missile capabilities while cooperation among North Korea, China and Russia deepens, strong alliances and international coordination remain the most realistic foundation for safeguarding Korea's security. Xi's trip to Pyongyang must not become an occasion that legitimizes North Korea's pursuit of permanent nuclear weapons status.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.

A teenager who discovers BTS today may grow up to book trips to Seoul, buy Korean products and carry a favorable image of Korea well into adulthood.

That is the long-term bet behind a recent analyst report from NH Investment & Securities, which argued that young BTS fans could eventually translate their fandom into lasting economic gains for Korea, enough to buoy the country's GDP decades from now.

There is a precedent nearby, which may at first sound ambitious. Japan spent decades turning anime, manga, games and characters into soft power, as generations raised on Nintendo, Pokémon and Studio Ghibli grew into adults who feel Japan is familiar and culturally close to them.

Now, Korea is facing a similar moment, but one question remains: Can BTS — and K-pop, more broadly — build the kind of generational longevity that Japanese pop culture has enjoyed so far?

'K-imprinted' generation

The NH Investment & Securities report, released May 24, projected that BTS's global fandom, collectively known as ARMY, could boost Korea's annual GDP by 0.1 to 0.35 percentage points through increased tourism by 2040. The estimate is based partly on the demographic composition of the fandom, as a 2022 fan-conducted census cited by the report found that 84 percent of global ARMY members were under 29, suggesting that many are still years away from their prime earning and spending years.

The argument is primarily built on the premise of the cohort effect — the idea that cultural preferences formed in youth can shape spending behavior later in life.

In fandom economies, the report argues, demand created by specific artists can extend well beyond albums and concerts, altering a fan's broader consumer path. It divided fandom consumption into four stages: imprinting, fandom activation, peak consumption and legacy consumption, with each stage roughly a decade apart.

For BTS, the report argued, the imprinting stage took place through the early and mid-2020s, while the fandom activation stage is now beginning. If that trajectory holds, BTS-related consumption could peak in the 2030s, when these fans will have greater purchasing power.

"Because the K-fandom age group is still concentrated among teens and people in their 20s, with relatively low income levels, the degree to which fandom consumption may affect GDP remains limited," noted Jung Yeo-kyung, a researcher at NH Investment & Securities and the report's primary author. "In the 2030s, when the K-imprinted generation gains purchasing power and returns to Korea, the impact of the K-fandom economy on GDP is expected to become more visible."

'Cool Japan' strategy

One of the clearest examples of pop culture shaping a generation's perception of a country is Japan, whose global image has long been defined partly by its pop culture including anime, manga, games and character franchises.

Japanese pop culture established its commercial presence overseas in the 1980s and 1990s through cult anime such as "Dragon Ball" (1986) and "Akira" (1988), as well as video games from Nintendo, including its first major home console game, "Super Mario Bros.," launched in 1984, and "The Legend of Zelda" in 1986. The momentum continued into the 2000s with enduring intellectual property (IP) including Pokémon.

Japan later incorporated this cultural impact into its "Cool Japan" strategy in the 2000s, after decades of anime, manga and games made the country feel familiar to global audiences. That soft power pulled in economic value as well, as spending by foreign visitors quadrupled over the past decade through 2024 — also partly fueled by a weak yen — making tourism the country's second-largest export category after cars.

"Countries with export-oriented industrial structures have been making efforts not only to build their national images but also to commercialize their nations alongside their products," wrote Kang Sung-woo, a research professor of foreign affairs at Chung-Ang University, in his 2016 paper "'Cool Japan' as Ja...

This article is by Park Eun-jee, Lee Jae-lim and read by an artificial voice.

Huang's extended visit to Korea underscores the country's evolving status within Nvidia's ecosystem — no longer just a supplier of memory chips, but an increasingly important customer for Nvidia's advanced AI processors.

His latest visit, running from Friday through Monday, centered on key demand centers ranging from gaming outlets and internet firm Naver to companies that have adopted a focus on robotics such as Hyundai Motor, Doosan and LG.

An unexpected player on the roster was Doosan, an industrial conglomerate spanning machinery and construction, but the company has become not only a supplier of a key material used in AI accelerators but a client for Nvidia platforms for developing and training robots.

In a celebratory gesture, Huang threw the ceremonial first pitch at a Doosan Bears home game at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in southern Seoul alongside Chairman Park Jeong-won.

"Business is booming, and Korea is doing very well. My partners here in Korea are very important to me," Huang told reporters on the sidelines of a Friday dinner with SK Chairman Chey Tae-won, LG's Koo Kwang-mo and Naver's Lee Hae-jin.

His final day itinerary on Monday is expected to include a meeting with Hyundai Motor Executive Chair Euisun Chung, followed by separate stops at the LG Electronics and Naver offices.

Although no specific deal had been announced as of press time on Sunday, nearly every stop on Huang's itinerary involved companies viewed as key customers or partners for Nvidia's newest AI platforms.

"Jetson Thor is widely expected to power Atlas, the humanoid robot developed by Hyundai Motor Group's affiliate Boston Dynamics," Kim Doo-un, an analyst at Hana Securities said. Jetson Thor is Nvidia's robot-focused AI processor designed to serve as the onboard computing platform for humanoids.

"RTX Spark could find applications in high-performance PCs and on-device AI systems. The result is that Korean companies are becoming increasingly intertwined with Nvidia's next wave of growth businesses, from next-generation AI accelerators and physical AI to AI PCs," Kim said, speaking about Nvidia's Arm-based system on chip and computing platform.

PC bangs on the rise

PC bangs, Korea's signature gaming cafes, emerged as recurring venues as well, serving as the first stop for the CEOs meeting with esports legend Faker on Friday and later hosting a separate gathering with Krafton Chairman Chang Byung-gyu and NC CEO Kim Taek-jin Sunday.

There, Huang pitched the upcoming RTX Spark chip that will be integrated directly into into laptops to deliver far more powerful on-device AI capabilities.

Developed through partnership with Krafton, an upcoming "co-playable character" powered by Nvidia ACE technology and optimized for the new RTX Spark laptops was demoed by Huang. The voice-activated AI acts as an interactive, real-time squad mate that can chat and strategize directly inside PUBG: Battlegrounds.

NC is also pushing its boundaries into physical AI through its subsidiary NC AI. The gaming company is developing AI systems capable of controlling robots and factory operations, while also working on models that enable robots to understand and interact with physical environments autonomously.

Memory still counts

As memory capacity remains vital to powering Nvidia's architecture, Huang pressed Korean suppliers to ramp up production of high bandwidth memory chips (HBM).

When he sat down for the star-studded dinner at a samgyeopsal (pork belly) restaurant in Mapo District, western Seoul, he noted that Nvidia's new products — such as Vera Rubin, Vera and RTX Spark — will require more memory, including high bandwidth memory and low-power double data rate, or LPDDR, memory.

Huang also acknowledged that three memory makers — Samsung, SK hynix and Micron — passed Nvidia's quality test for their HBM4, which will be fitted into the Vera Rubin platform.

The Nvidia chief had another round o...

Dipping green chili peppers into ssamjang — a thick, spicy-sweet paste — and piling grilled pork, scallions and kimchi onto a perilla leaf before wrapping it into a hefty bite is a familiar ritual at boozy Korean dinners, especially among middle-aged men, or ajeossi.

And Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, alongside his companions SK Chairman Chey Tae-won, LG Chairman Koo Kwang-mo and Naver founder Lee Hae-jin, was at the heart of this particular, closely followed dinner in Seoul's youthful Hongik University neighborhood.

The tech titans gathered at around 7 p.m. on Friday, following Huang's arrival in the country at 1:30 p.m. the same day.

This time, the venue was the Korean barbecue restaurant Hyeongnim Jeoyo, which translates to "Brother, it's me," a name in line with last year's setting at a Kkanbu Chicken store. "Kkanbu" is Korean slang referring to a close friend or trusted companion

All four executives are undoubtedly billionaires, but it was Naver's Lee who picked up the tab, paying with the internet firm's payment service, Naver Pay.

After dinner, the four executives engaged with reporters and people who had gathered outside the restaurant for a glimpse of the high-profile meeting.

They handed out desserts, including bottles of banana milk, a popular Korean dairy drink, and bungeoppang, a fish-shaped pastry traditionally filled with sweet red bean paste.

BY PARK EUN-JEE [[email protected]]

This article is by Kim Min-young and read by an artificial voice.

PAJU, Gyeonggi — The heat hit first, then the dust. Cranes swung overhead against a hazy sky as concrete pump trucks idled below, and inside the half-built shell of Building 1, the air was thick with the grit of a site that is only about 20 percent finished.

Workers in hard hats threaded between bare concrete columns that climb five stories, past pipe racks already roughly 70 percent installed, while reporters in borrowed safety vests picked their way along a marked corridor. This raw, unfinished floor, a first-floor machine room still open to the elements, is where LG U+, the country's telco provider, on Friday chose to make its pitch.

The Paju AI Data Center, rising upon a 22,000-pyeong (72,727 square-meters) lot in Wollong-myeon, Gyeonggi, is the centerpiece of a strategy the carrier unveiled on-site to win 5 trillion won ($3.3 billion) in cumulative AI data center orders by 2030 and remake itself into what it calls an "AI Factory Operator."

With a confirmed 200-megawatt power supply, it will be the only hyperscale-class facility of its size in the greater Seoul area, capable of powering the entire capital region's generative AI services at once.

The clearest sign of demand was delivered even before the cement had dried. Building 1, due for completion next June, is already sold out. The 50-megawatt structure, carrying about 30 megawatts of actual IT load, has been fully contracted to what the company would only describe as a large customer.

LG U+ expects more than 1 trillion won in annual orders through 2030 and projects average annual revenue growth of 15 to 20 percent for the business.

Standing on the concrete floor of the unfinished building, executives sketched out a site that will eventually hold five buildings across roughly 152,000 square meters (1.64 million square feet), more than 20 football pitches of floor space.

"The competitiveness of an AI data center now depends not on the scale of the facility but on how stably you can operate the entire infrastructure," said Ahn Hyurng-gyoon, vice president of LG U+'s Enterprise AI Business Group, his keynote address competing with the ambient clatter of the site.

Ahn pointed to a surge in demand as the industry shifts from training AI models to running them, noting that monthly token-processing volumes have climbed roughly 67-fold over the past year.

Ahn organized the company's case around power, cooling, construction speed and operational stability. The power comes from a 345-kilovolt substation across the road, visible past the rebar and scaffolding, with a 154-kilovolt line as backup.

Both run underground at a depth of about nine meters, which the company said eliminates the electromagnetic field concerns that often draw complaints near data centers. Officials said the supply was locked in after a formal power-impact assessment last August, and that opposition has been muted because the site sits inside a former LG Display industrial complex.

Cooling is where the building's bones have been shaped most deliberately. Paju is being built as Korea's first hyperscale center to run both air and liquid cooling in a hybrid structure, with floor loads, waterproofing and piping engineered for liquid from the design stage. Pointing to the columns flanking the machine room, field-team official Kim Jong-jin explained that every pipe is laid so a tenant can switch to liquid the moment its servers demand it.

The primary method, direct-to-chip cooling developed with LG Electronics, attaches a cold plate to the chip and circulates coolant to pull heat away at the source, improving energy efficiency by about 24 percent over air cooling in the company's tests. All three computing floors of Building 1, floors three through five, are designed for it.

The company has spent the past year validating liquid cooling in a proof-of-concept room at its Pyeongchon center, including both direct-to-chip and immersion methods, an...

Boy band TWS will release "Dream With Us," an anthem for Korea's national football team, on Thursday, according to its agency Pledis Entertainment on Friday.

The song was written to cheer on the national team as it prepares for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in North and Central America.

Built around the message "if we believe in miracles together, then miracles begin," the track celebrates the passion of young people who rally behind a shared dream.

"Dream With Us" had its world premiere at Korea's final pretournament friendly against El Salvador in Salt Lake City on Wednesday. A promotional video posted the same day on JTBC's official social media channels shows the members dressed in red shirts, waving Korean flags and chanting "Korea, fighting!" The clip also features a preview of the song.

TWS was appointed as an ambassador for the Korea Football Association last October and has since served as a bridge between the national squad and its fans.

"We are truly happy to be able to support the national football team through music," the band said in a statement. "We will cheer with all our hearts so that the players, who have worked so hard to prepare for this World Cup, can put on a wonderful performance."

The sextet — Shinyu, Dohoon, Youngjae, Hanjin, Jihoon and Kyungmin — debuted in 2024 with the EP "Sparkling Blue" and has since released "Plot Twist" (2024), "If I'm S, Can You Be My N?" (2024) and "Countdown!" (2025).

BY LEE JIAN [[email protected]]

If Korea hopes to build a more inclusive financial system, empowering individuals to control and utilize their own data must become a central policy priority.

Kang Kyeong-hoon

The author is a professor of Business Administration at Dongguk University.

Kim Yong-beom, the presidential chief policy secretary, recently drew attention with a social media post highlighting problems in Korea's credit evaluation system. His remarks touched on a longstanding issue in finance: Traditional credit scoring often disadvantages low- and middle-credit borrowers and younger consumers.

Most credit assessment systems rely heavily on past financial records. Critics argue that this approach structurally excludes many borrowers and weakens the market for mid-interest-rate loans, creating what some describe as a "donut economy" in which the middle tier is underserved.

Alternative credit scoring has emerged as a promising solution. Governments can expand policy guarantees or policy-based lending, but such measures inevitably increase fiscal burdens. Alternative credit assessment, which focuses on current economic activity and cash flow rather than past delinquencies, can help restore financial mobility while minimizing public spending.

The idea also aligns with the current administration's push to promote AI. Data is often described as the oil of the AI era. Yet data differs from oil in an important respect. Oil is depleted when consumed, while data can be used repeatedly by multiple parties at the same time. Its value often grows when combined with other datasets.

This characteristic was highlighted in the 2020 paper "Nonrivalry and the Economics of Data" by Stanford University professors Charles Jones and Christopher Tonetti. The paper compares two ownership models.

When companies own data, they tend to restrict access to protect competitive advantages and economic rents. The result is fragmentation, reduced data utilization and lower social welfare.

When consumers own their data, however, they can share it with multiple institutions, including banks and fintech firms. Individuals benefit from broader financial opportunities while contributing to economic growth. At the same time, they can weigh privacy concerns against the benefits of sharing information and make their own decisions.

Efforts to establish data sovereignty around the world reflect these findings. The principle is straightforward: Individuals should have meaningful control over their personal data.

Examples already exist. In the United States, cash flow underwriting evaluates borrowers using real-time sales records and bank account activity rather than relying solely on credit scores or collateral. This allows small-business owners, young borrowers and financially vulnerable groups to demonstrate their creditworthiness through actual economic behavior.

Britain introduced open banking even earlier. Under the system, banks must, with customer consent, provide financial data to authorized third parties such as fintech companies. Information that was once locked inside banks can be used to obtain better products and services. Open banking is a practical example of data sovereignty in action.

Korea has moved quickly to adopt similar systems. The country launched open banking in 2019, introduced financial MyData services in 2022 and is now expanding MyData across industries. The government-led standardized application programming interface framework has produced high levels of security, stability and data quality. In theory, Korea has already built a strong foundation for alternative credit evaluation and inclusive finance.

Yet despite this infrastructure, alternative credit scoring and cash flow underwriting remain underdeveloped. The reason is that Korea's open banking and MyData systems still focus largely on payment convenience and information retrieval rather than genuine data sovereignty.

Open banking has improved user experience through services such as simple transfers and in...