Korea JoongAng Daily - Daily News from Korea

This article is by Shin Ha-nee and read by an artificial voice.

Boy band AND2BLE may have just debuted, but its lineup is hardly new to the K-pop scene.

Made up of some of the most recognizable faces from Mnet's hit audition program "Boys Planet" (2023), the five-member group is stepping beyond its past success to start anew — this time, on its own terms.

"The first thing that came to mind when I learned that the five of us would be debuting together was that we have a really strong lineup," said leader Zhang Hao during a press showcase for the group's debut held in central Seoul on Tuesday. "We all have extensive stage experience, so not only we can perform better together, but we also know how precious it is to have to a chance to stand on stage."

Member Yoo Seung-eon echoed the sentiment, stressing that the five members have spent their younger years training together under YH Entertainment.

"I felt confident, thinking with the five of us, we might be able to make history in the K-pop scene," said Yoo. "We were together during our trainee days, so I believe we can make a strong team built on trust and comfort."

AND2BLE, pronounced "and-double," combines the words "and" and "double," reflecting the idea that different sides of one's inner self can overlap and expand into a fuller sense of identity, according to its agency YH Entertainment.

AND2BLE consists of five members: former ZeroBaseOne members Zhang, Ricky, Kim Gyu-vin and Han Yu-jin, and former EVNNE member Yoo.

The four former ZeroBaseOne members were among the nine winners of Mnet's boy band audition program "Boys Planet" (2023), which formed the project group. Zhang finished in first place, followed by Ricky in fourth, Kim in seventh and Han in ninth.

After ZeroBaseOne's two-year-and-nine-month contract ended, the four members returned to their original agency, YH Entertainment, while the remaining five members continued as ZeroBaseOne.

Yoo also competed on "Boys Planet," but did not make the final lineup after finishing in 16th place. He later debuted as a member of EVNNE, a boy band made up of other "Boys Planet" contestants who fell short of the final roster. With the launch of AND2BLE, Yoo joins the four former ZeroBaseOne members to form a new quintet.

Although Yoo had been in a different group from the rest of his new bandmates, he said their teamwork remained strong because of the close bond they built as trainees.

"Though we have been apart for a while, we were able to prepare our album in a comfortable, fun atmosphere," he said. "I joined the team after discussions with the company, which came when I was deliberating about my future. As this is a new start, I wanted to give my best in preparing for it."

Regardless, the five members said they all remain close with their former bandmates, they said, exchanging messages of support.

"As we had spent a long time together, we still remain close," said Zhang. "We truly wish each other success sincerely cheering one another on."

AND2BLE's debut EP, "Sequence 01: Curiosity," features five songs: the lead track "Curious" and B-sides "Aura," "Sugar Rush," "Bed" and "Happy &." Zhang is credited for participating in writing lyrics for "Curious" and "Happy &," Ricky for "Curious" and "Aura," and Kim for "Happy &."

The lead track, "Curious," is an intense EDM song that blends synth pop and future house. The agency described the track as capturing the confidence of facing changes sparked by dangerous curiosity.

"We've explored the concept of curiosity in this album because it fits where we are now well as we take our first step," said Kim. "There's this instinctive curiosity and excitement one feels at the beginning of something new, and I hope the album makes you curious about AND2BLE."

Looking ahead, AND2BLE aims to become a group that fans can be proud to support.

"As AND2BLE, our ultimate goal is to become a group that fans can proudly say they support," said Han. "So we want to do our best at every moment an...

This article is by Choi Min-ji, Jeong Eun-hye. and read by an artificial voice.

BTS proved Monday that four years away from the stage doesn't loosen a fanbase's grip. The Korean septet swept all three of its nominations at the American Music Awards (AMAs) — including Artist of the Year — in its first collective appearance at a major U.S. awards ceremony since the members completed their mandatory military service.

The band last won the top award in 2021, held annually at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

This year, it beat out competitors Bad Bunny, Bruno Mars, Harry Styles, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, Lady Gaga, Morgan Wallen and Sabrina Carpenter to win the fan-voted honor.

Accepting the award, RM addressed the crowd and the band's devoted fanbase directly. "ARMYs, we made it once again. Thank you. It's an honor to have this precious award once again, after everybody's done their military service," he said. "Like the legendary Busta Rhymes said, it's a fan-voted award, so our biggest thanks and gratitude goes to the ARMYs all over the world. You stood by us for the past 13 years — thank you so much."

J-Hope spoke second. "Wow. We have been overwhelmed by the reaction to this album," he said. "Thank you for embracing 'Arirang' and every single song on this album that you helped chart. Thank you, for real, we are so grateful."

Jimin had the final word. "Thank you for passionately following us on tour and showing so much love in every city," he said.

BTS also took home Song of the Summer for "Swim," the lead track of its fifth album "Arirang," released in March, and Best Male K-Pop Artist.

"When we made this album, we had a lot of pressure, and we tried to figure out what kind of music felt the most like us right now," said RM in the acceptance speech for the Song of the Summer award. "But the only thing we believed in was that we had to keep challenging [ourselves] and to keep moving forward."

V added: "And to everyone out there who keeps swimming no matter what, we send you our love and support. So keep swimming."

BTS debuted in 2013 with members RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook, and is widely credited with shattering barriers for Korean music on the international stage by becoming the first Korean act to top the U.S. Billboard 200 and Hot 100 charts. After pausing band activities in 2022 to fulfill mandatory Korean military service, the band officially made its comeback on March 20, releasing "Arirang," its first album with all the members in nearly four years.

The band now holds 14 trophies at the AMAs across band and solo activities.

"As seen in the successful comebacks of groups like Big Bang and SHINee, the uniquely tight bonds of K-pop fandoms don't dissolve just because a star disappears for a while," Seoul National University professor of media and communication Hong Seok-kyeong said. "It appears that this fan culture has now spread overseas."

"Swim" debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 upon release. Simultaneously, "Arirang" the album claimed the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200, making history as the first K-pop album to hold the top position for three consecutive weeks. Its ongoing Arirang World Tour, playing at stadium-sized venues in 34 cities around the world, has posted strong ticket sales throughout. Even sudden, unofficial venues saw strong fan turnout, such as when an estimated 50,000 fans gathered in the plaza near the Mexican presidential palace after the members were invited there.

BTS during the recent AMAs was already in Las Vegas for a sold-out run of shows at Allegiant Stadium as part of its world tour. It staged its first Vegas show on Saturday, followed by another on Sunday, with two more performances scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday.

The AMAs are one of the music industry's "Big Three" major annual award shows, alongside the Grammys and the Billboard Music Awards. Created in 1973 as an alternative to the Grammys, the AMAs honor the most popular art...

This article is by Lee Jae-lim and read by an artificial voice.

NHN Cloud's AI chip clusters are running at full capacity, with GPU resources sold out for the year and customers already lining up to reserve capacity for next year, the cloud provider announced Tuesday.

The company also unveiled a new brand called "FactoryX," which covers the full pipeline from GPU procurement to AI agent deployment.

"All of our GPUs are operating at 100 percent," said NHN Cloud CEO Kim Dong-hoon at a press conference held in central Seoul. "GPU bookings are nearly sold out through the end of this year. We're in talks with several major Korean conglomerates about filling any capacity that may open up next year."

He added that across the domestic market, supply continues to fall short of demand, prompting customers to prebook capacity and enter into long-term contracts.

NHN Cloud currently operates the National AI Data Center in Gwangju, powered by a mix of Nvidia H100 GPUs and domestically developed neural processing units. Its FactoryX Seoul facility, located in the Yeongdeungpo district of western Seoul, runs a cluster of 7,656 B200 chips which deliver 27.4 exaflops. The company is also planning to build a new data center in Pohang, North Gyeongsang.

For customers who have secured GPU capacity, NHN Cloud offers two platform services: GPU Live, which helps businesses maximize GPU utilization with minimal waste, and EasyMaker, a development platform for building AI applications.

"The center of gravity in the AI race has shifted away from large models toward operating AI that can run reliably in real business environments while keeping costs in check," Kim said. "Through FactoryX, we will fully support AI transformation across both the public and private sectors."

The company expects AI revenue to nearly triple its share this year, from 13 percent to 38 percent, and to fully catch up with its cloud business by next year — with the two contributing roughly equal shares of total revenue.

NHN Cloud is also set to launch a service currently known as "Project X" in the second half the year. The platform allows businesses to deploy AI agents across their operations and is designed so that even nontechnical staff can configure customized agents using plain language commands. The agents integrate with a company's existing internal systems and data to automate workflows while keeping costs and security risks low.

Beyond Korea, NHN Cloud has its sights on Japan's AI infrastructure market, which Kim sees as lagging behind Korea — and therefore ripe for expansion.

"We've been meeting frequently with Japanese firms and believe Korean companies hold a meaningful technological edge in AI and cloud," he said. NHN Cloud plans to pursue data center investment and GPU deployment in Japan, with that push expected to begin between 2027 and 2028.

This article is by Lim Jeong-won and read by an artificial voice.

By now, everyone should have heard of dansaekhwa, the Korean monochrome style of painting which has set sale records at global auctions and created a buying trend among collectors. Its muted yet intensive and meditative abstraction has mesmerized global art audiences over the past decade and come to define Korean modern art.

But the global rise of dansaekhwa also raises a larger question: Why did this particular genre become the face of Korean art? And what comes next?

Most of the paintings now circulating under the name dansaekhwa are more than 50 years old. Park Seo-bo's "Ecriture" series, Chung Sang-hwa's grids of cut and re-pasted paint, Ha Chong-hyun's "Conjunction" works pushed through the back of hemp canvas — these were being made in Seoul in the 1970s, by artists who would not see significant international sales for another four decades. The term itself isn't new either; art critic Lee Yil was already using the word dansaekhwa around 1980.

"What changed however was not the work," said Joan Kee, art historian and director of New York University's Institute of Fine Arts. "It was who was paying attention."

The shift of attention on dansaekhwa is usually dated to 2014, when two exhibitions opened on opposite sides of the world within months of each other: "Dansaekhwa" at Kukje Gallery in Seoul, in time with the Gwangju Biennale that year, and "From All Sides: Tansaekhwa on Abstraction" at Blum & Poe in Los Angeles, curated by Kee.

Between 2013 and 2017, auction prices for works by Park, Chung, Ha and Lee Ufan rose dramatically at Christie's and Sotheby's sales, culminating with one particular work by Kim Whan-ki fetching $13 million at a Hong Kong auction in 2019, the highest price ever paid for a Korean artwork to date. The galleries that had been showing these artists for decades — Kukje, Hyundai, Tina Kim, Blum & Poe — suddenly found themselves at the center of a market story.

How that story came together is, depending on whom you ask, either a long-overdue correction or the result of a very specific organizational strategy that began in Seoul in the 1970s.

A movement, or an assembled category?

Kee, author of "Contemporary Korean Art: Tansaekhwa and the Urgency of Method" (2013), the first English-language scholarly book on the subject, has pushed back on the idea that the rise of dansaekhwa in 2014 was an engineered moment.

"The galleries involved weren't assembling a movement to sell — they had longstanding, artist-specific commitments," Kee told the Korea JoongAng Daily. "Kukje had been working with Lee Ufan long before 2014. Hyundai had a deep relationship with Chung going back years."

What happened in 2014, in Kee's account, was convergence rather than coordination. The two exhibitions were conceived independently. The Kukje show caught international audiences traveling through Seoul on the way to Gwangju; the Blum & Poe show was seen by the adviser Allan Schwartzman, whose interest helped place a Ha work in MoMA's collection in New York.

Koo Jin-kyung, a professor at Gachon University whose doctoral dissertation traced dansaekhwa as an organized project, sees the same period differently.

For Koo, it was not simply a coherent aesthetic that the world eventually recognized. It was, in her phrase, the product of "choice and focus," selection and concentration — a deliberate strategy pursued by Korean art institutions and galleries beginning in the 1970s.

"Dansaekhwa was not naturally chosen by the art world," Prof. Koo said. "The Korean art scene at the time consciously selected it as the representative tendency it could present on the international stage, and then repeatedly exhibited it abroad and at home."

Koo points to the "Independents" and "Ecole de Seoul" exhibitions, both established under Park's leadership at the Korean Fine Arts Association, as a filtering system: Emerging artists were recruited into a stylistic mainstream and sent ab...

Han Seon-hwa

The author is an honorary professor at UST and former president of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information.

A recurring sensory motif runs through the Korean film "Parasite" (2019): smell. In the film, the wealthy Park family repeatedly notices the odor of the semi-basement family. Park Dong-ik says it "crosses the line." However hard the poorer family tries to hide its circumstances or pass unnoticed, smell cruelly exposes an invisible boundary. The reason may lie in the deep connection between the human sense of smell, emotion and prejudice.

Smell operates differently from the other senses. Most sensory information travels through the thalamus before reaching the cerebral cortex, where it is processed and interpreted. Olfactory signals, however, do not pass through the thalamus first. They project directly to the amygdala, which is closely tied to emotion, and the hippocampus, which stores long-term memory. This pathway is often linked to the "Proust phenomenon," in which a particular smell or taste brings back memories and emotions from the past.

That is why people may feel sudden disgust when encountering a certain odor, even before they can explain why. The opposite is also true. A familiar scent can create a sense of intimacy that is difficult to describe. Smell is not merely a set of airborne molecules. It can work as a switch that turns memory and emotion on almost instantly.

Scientists say humans experienced a sharp decline in olfactory ability during evolution. Rats have about 1,300 olfactory genes, around 1,100 of which function. Humans have roughly 1,000 such genes, but only about 350 remain functional. One explanation is that as humans began walking upright, the nose moved farther from the ground, making smell less important for survival.

Yet the retreat of smell may also carry another meaning. Because smell can stir emotion without passing through the filter of reason, perhaps humans needed to become wary of relying too heavily on it. People often attach meaning to smell and use it to judge or exclude others. A stranger's body odor or the unfamiliar flavor of another culture's food can become an instinctive cue for rejection.

But unfamiliar smells do not have to remain markers of distance. As cheonggukjang (rich soybean paste) or blue cheese show, what once seemed strange can become culture and memory once it becomes familiar. Preventing smell from becoming prejudice or discrimination requires effort and vigilance. When an unfamiliar scent awakens bias, reason must intervene. Understanding difference may begin not with grand philosophy but with the willingness to stay a little longer before an unfamiliar boundary.

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.

Koh Yu-hwan

The author is an emeritus professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University and former director of the Institute for Unification Studies.

Summits involving the leaders of the United States, China and Russia were held in Beijing on May 14 and May 20 in rapid succession. The closely watched meetings among the world's major powers reflected a broader shift in the international order, as the U.S.-led unipolar system gradually gives way to a more multipolar structure.

At the latest U.S.-China summit, Washington appeared focused on "managing relations" with Beijing while China concentrated on establishing what it called a "constructive strategic stability relationship." Some diplomats even remarked that U.S. President Donald Trump appeared conciliatory while Chinese President Xi Jinping remained firm and confident throughout the talks.

During Trump's first term, Washington attempted to "decouple" China from global supply chains as part of strategic competition. That effort later softened into "de-risking," aimed at reducing vulnerabilities rather than severing ties altogether. The latest summit suggested another adjustment in Washington's approach.

After returning to office and initially imposing sweeping tariffs on allies and rivals alike, Trump appeared to soften his stance during the Beijing visit. Accompanied by major business leaders including Jensen Huang and Elon Musk, Trump praised China and expressed hopes for expanded business cooperation in artificial intelligence, semiconductors and aerospace industries. Critics viewed the posture as unusually deferential for the leader of a global superpower.

The apparent shift reflected mounting domestic economic pressure. Rising prices linked to conflict with Iran have become a political burden ahead of November's midterm elections, increasing pressure on the administration to stabilize relations with Beijing and avoid further disruption to supply chains and financial markets. As a result, Washington's China strategy increasingly appears centered on managing competition rather than pursuing separation. The deep economic interdependence between the two countries has made a complete break unrealistic.

This process should be understood through the broader framework of "power transition." Since Xi took power in 2012, China has promoted the "Chinese Dream," calling for the "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation." At the 2013 Sunnylands summit, Xi told then-President Barack Obama that "the Pacific Ocean is vast enough to accommodate both China and the United States." At the 2023 San Francisco summit, Xi expanded the idea further, saying the Earth itself was large enough for both countries. During the latest summit, he went further still by openly demanding coexistence on equal terms.

From sharing the Pacific to sharing the globe, China's message has steadily evolved into a demand for mutual recognition of spheres of influence. Beijing's long-advocated concept of a "new type of major power relations" increasingly appears to be taking shape in reality.

The implications for Taiwan are particularly significant. Xi reportedly pressed Trump on whether the United States would defend Taiwan in the event of military conflict, but Trump avoided giving a direct answer. Instead, he suggested that U.S. arms sales to Taiwan could be reconsidered, implying that Taiwan might become a bargaining chip in negotiations with Beijing.

Whether this reflects a tactical retreat or a deeper strategic shift remains uncertain. Still, the message unsettled U.S. allies in Asia, including Korea and Japan, because it suggested Washington could revise security commitments if doing so served American interests. For countries that have long depended on the U.S. security umbrella, the remarks reinforced concerns that alliance commitments could become part of broader geopolitical bargaining.

Trump's emphasis on transactional diplomacy also carries serious implications for Korea. While the United State...

The author is a professor at KAIST.

Ancient Greeks used the word "mythos" to describe stories or narratives. Like all words, its meaning shifted over time. Beginning in the early 19th century, Europeans increasingly applied mythos only to old tales, especially ancient Greek legends. That is why the word today is often understood simply as "myth."

Yet another interpretation exists. In "Poetics" (335 B.C.), Aristotle used mythos to describe the representation or structure of action within tragedy. By contrast, ethos referred to the character performing the action, while praxis meant the action itself. Aristotle argued that the essence of tragedy lay not in character or action alone but in mythos, which connected the two.

That background makes the naming of the latest AI model introduced by Anthropic on April 7 symbolic. The important point is not who created it or how it was built, but the very existence of an AI system with such capabilities.

Mythos is described as the most advanced AI system developed so far, especially in coding and hacking. Reports say it identified vulnerabilities not only in operating systems such as Windows and macOS but also in BSD Unix, which has supported much of the global internet infrastructure for nearly three decades. It reportedly went further by proposing hacking strategies based on those vulnerabilities.

In theory, if such technology were obtained by terrorist groups or rogue states, it could threaten the global internet system. Online payments, logistics systems and communications infrastructure could all be affected simultaneously. Such dystopian possibilities no longer seem entirely unimaginable.

As a result, Anthropic reportedly decided not to release Mythos publicly. Instead, access has been limited to companies connected to the discovered vulnerabilities.

That decision raises another issue. Most companies participating in the so-called Project Glasswing are U.S. firms. Korean companies, meanwhile, reportedly cannot access Mythos. The imbalance means that while the U.S. government and certain private companies may now possess tools capable of disrupting foreign information technology infrastructure, many countries, including Korea, lack comparable defensive capabilities.

Another concern lies in the nature of modern AI competition. Today's AI race is driven less by different theories or algorithms than by scale. Since most companies rely on similar mathematical foundations, the decisive factors are massive datasets and large-scale GPU infrastructure. Given enough computing power, creating comparable AI systems eventually becomes a matter of time.

Reports suggest that GPT-5.5, released by OpenAI on April 23, possesses coding and hacking abilities similar to Mythos. In effect, Mythos may mark the beginning of unlimited competition among major technology companies.

For U.S. allies such as Korea, this competition presents both opportunities and risks. For China, however, it represents a strategic vulnerability. The obvious response for Beijing would be to develop an AI system comparable to Mythos. Yet China's flagship AI model, DeepSeek V4, released on April 24, reportedly has not demonstrated the performance many expected.

Because of semiconductor export controls, China still faces difficulty building data center infrastructure on the scale available in the United States. Under such conditions, matching AI models developed by Anthropic, Google or OpenAI remains challenging.

If China cannot catch up through conventional methods, it may seek alternatives. One option would be integrating multiple AI systems developed by different firms into a single national AI champion. Another could involve nationalizing domestic data centers to create state-led computing infrastructure.

But if even those measures fail, China could turn to a more dangerous path: recursive self-improvement, or RSI. Proposed in 1965 by British mathematician I. J. Good, RSI refers to a process in which AI rewrites its own c...

Kim Yong-beom, the presidential chief of staff for policy, recently described Korea's combination of high interest rates, high inflation and a weak currency — the so-called three highs — as "the cost of success" accompanying the country's economic advance into a new stage, rather than a sign of crisis.

In a Facebook post titled "The Cost of Success," uploaded on Sunday, Kim argued that the current turbulence should be viewed as "friction from a leap forward" rather than evidence of economic instability. Earlier this month, he also drew attention by mentioning the possibility of a "national dividend" funded through excess tax revenue expected from the semiconductor boom.

As Kim pointed out, Korea's economic conditions differ from those of past crises. Surging semiconductor exports have pushed the current account surplus to record levels. Corporate earnings have improved and foreign exchange reserves have grown substantially.

Kim's explanation for the dollar-won exchange rate surpassing 1,500 won also carries some logic. He argued that the recent weakness of the Korean won stems less from a shortage of foreign currency than from demand for dollars by foreign investors cashing out gains from the rapidly rising Kospi.

The problem, however, lies in what critics see as excessive optimism and selective interpretation.

Kim emphasized that explosive growth in the semiconductor and AI industries has triggered a virtuous cycle in which corporate profits, wages and asset prices rise together, boosting household income, expanding tax revenue and naturally lowering the national debt ratio.

Yet his remarks appear to treat high interest rates and inflation merely as temporary friction accompanying growth while overlooking concerns surrounding expansionary fiscal policies and excessive liquidity measures that contributed to rising prices and exchange-rate volatility.

Structural weaknesses in the Korean economy also remain unresolved. Treating the three highs simply as the price of success risks encouraging complacency in crisis management.

For Korea, which depends heavily on imported energy, a weaker won inevitably raises import costs and inflationary pressure. Household debt surpassed 1.99 quadrillion won ($1.3 trillion) in the first quarter based on an exchange rate of 1,530 won to the dollar. High borrowing costs are placing pressure on households, small businesses and self-employed workers while also threatening domestic consumption.

There are also concerns that gains from the semiconductor boom will remain concentrated among major conglomerates and asset markets, deepening what is often described as Korea's "K-shaped polarization."

Kim argued that confusion arises when people misread the "friction" of the three highs as signs of crisis. But if Korea truly is entering a new stage of economic development, the country must strengthen new growth engines while pursuing structural reform to secure sustainable growth. Without such efforts, critics argue, Kim's optimistic rhetoric risks sounding more like political reassurance than an economic diagnosis.

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.

This article is by Sarah Chea and read by an artificial voice.

JAKARTA, Indonesia — What if you could determine, in advance, the most optimal soil for cultivating fruit? What if a single spray could extend the shelf life of apples by 10 days?

These were just a few of the startup ideas awarded at the MAJU:ON Final Demo Day, an entrepreneurship support program backed by SK Innovation E&S, held on May 21 at the Garuda Spark Innovation Hub in Jakarta, Indonesia.

SK Innovation E&S launched the MAJU:ON project in 2025, attracting 270 startup teams from eight universities across Indonesia. Over the course of 10 months, 130 selected teams received support from SK to transform their entrepreneurial ideas into viable ventures. And out of that group, only the top 10 teams were invited to the final event, where five teams received awards.

Gisact, the top-prize winning startup, showcased its "Spatial Data Insight Platform" which analyzes complex geographic information from disaster response to agriculture to support pivotal decision-making. The platform can monitor soil conditions to determine the most suitable areas for crop cultivation, while also providing real-time insights into how land conditions shift during floods and other natural disasters.

The second prize went to Aigra, a startup that developed an AI system that monitors storage conditions to prevent post-harvest losses and agricultural product spoilage.

Life Guards received the third place with its coating spray made from discarded potato starch that extends the freshness of fruits and vegetables for more than 10 days.

The top three teams shared a total prize of $8,000 and earned an opportunity to visit Korea for networking engagements with Korean startups. The first-place team also received an additional $4,000 award from Indonesia's Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR).

"MEMR is deeply grateful for SK Innovation E&S's longstanding commitment to cultivating the next generation of leaders in Indonesia's energy sector," Dr. Ir. Hariyanto, head of the planning bureau at the ministry, said during the event. "We hope greater opportunities will emerge for young entrepreneurs driving innovation across the energy industry, and we remain committed to providing sustained support in the years ahead."

Participants will also be given opportunities to secure investment through one-on-one matchmaking sessions with leading Indonesian venture capital firms. Following a qualification review, selected startups will be eligible for interest-free loans of up to 20 million won ($13,000).

Indonesia, the world's fourth-most populous country with more than 280 million people, is widely regarded as a dynamic young nation, with a median age of around 29. Yet the country continues to face structural gaps in its entrepreneurial ecosystem, particularly in access to startup infrastructure and early-stage funding.

Against this backdrop, SK Innovation E&S and ESG solutions firm UD Impact have launched the project to help bridge these shortcomings.

Building upon energy as a key pillar of Korea–Indonesia cooperation, the two companies plan to launch the second cohort of the program in September, with an expanded effort to recruit and support a greater number of young entrepreneurs.

"Through the MAJU:ON Project, we witnessed the boundless potential of Indonesia's young entrepreneurs," said Shon Dong-kun, President Director of SK Innovation E&S, adding that he hopes the initiative will serve as "a bridge connecting the industrial ecosystems of Indonesia and Korea."

SK's latest MAJU:ON Project arrives at a particularly consequential moment for Indonesia, whose once-booming startup ecosystem has been mired in a prolonged downturn following the spectacular collapse of eFishery. The aquaculture technology startup, which was once hailed as one of the country's unicorns with a valuation exceeding $1 billion, ultimately unraveled amid allegations of large-scale accounting fraud.

The scandal marked a w...

The author is a columnist at the JoongAng Ilbo.

"From my perspective, the idea of invoking emergency arbitration was never even something I considered."

That was Labor Minister Kim Young-hoon's reflection in a media interview after Samsung Electronics management and labor unions reached a tentative wage agreement. He likely meant that he had done his utmost as a mediator to prevent a breakdown in negotiations. His efforts deserve recognition. Yet the remark left lingering questions.

At the time, the situation was serious enough that both the prime minister and the industry minister publicly suggested the possible use of emergency arbitration powers. President Lee Jae Myung even referred to restricting certain basic rights in the interest of public welfare. Concerns mounted that strike-related losses could surpass 100 trillion won ($66.2 billion), while confidence in Korea's semiconductor supply chain could suffer lasting damage.

Yet the minister overseeing labor policy later admitted that he had ruled out even considering the government's strongest legal intervention mechanism from the outset.

It is understandable that Kim, a former leader of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), holds strong convictions regarding organized labor. Still, there are limits dictated by public responsibility. Invoking emergency arbitration may not always be desirable, but public opinion overwhelmingly favored government intervention in the Samsung strike dispute.

In a poll conducted by Media Tomato, 74.2 percent of respondents supported the use of emergency arbitration in the event of a strike. Support crossed ideological boundaries among conservatives, progressives and moderates alike. Given those circumstances, it is difficult to interpret the minister's comments as anything other than a reflection of his labor union background.

Kim is not the representative of a particular interest group. He is a Cabinet member responsible for state affairs. Had the strike ultimately gone ahead, what would he have done? Would he have resigned instead of invoking emergency arbitration powers? If personal beliefs cannot be reconciled with the responsibilities of public office, it may have been better to clarify that conflict beforehand. Avoiding the worst-case scenario was fortunate, but the episode hardly seems worthy of being presented as a personal triumph.

The semiconductor bonus dispute has also exposed a new divide in Korea's labor market. Large corporate unions have long faced criticism for behaving like privileged elites, but they at least publicly emphasized solidarity and shared values. This time, however, even that minimal justification appeared to disappear.

Choi Seung-ho, head of the Samsung Electronics branch of the Samsung Group labor union federation, was asked whether profits should also be shared with subcontractors. He responded that regular employees were "people who studied harder" and entered under different hiring conditions, making it unreasonable to place everyone on equal terms. It was a remarkably blunt expression of self-interest. One can almost imagine Karl Marx turning over in his grave after hearing workers reject solidarity so openly.

Inside Samsung, divisions over performance bonuses — which reportedly differed by as much as 100 to one between business divisions — have already created resentment. Shareholders, subcontractors and regional communities are also voicing concern. As one of Korea's two largest companies by market capitalization formally adopts an unprecedented operating profit-linked bonus system, unions in other industries are beginning to raise similar demands.

For many workers at small and midsize firms, as well as nonregular employees struggling simply to maintain stable employment, such disputes feel detached from economic reality. Their sense of relative deprivation has deepened into frustration.

Even so, organized labor's broader response remained ambiguous. The Federation of Korean Trade Unions ...