LG Group is betting big on clean energy technology as part of its ongoing efforts to seek future growth drivers that are also environmentally sustainable. LG Corp., the holding unit, said Wednesday that LG Group plans to inject 2 trillion won ($1.55 billion) in the next five years into the fields of bio materials, batteries and plastic recycling and other carbon neutral technologies. The new clean tech push comes as Chairman Koo Kwang-mo marked his fourth anniversary at the helm of the natio

Technology June 29, 2022

LG Energy Solution said Wednesday it is reviewing the profitability of its new battery plant in the US, citing growing uncertainties surrounding inflation woes and unfavorable foreign exchange movement. In March, the world’s second-largest electric vehicle battery maker announced plans to build its own battery plant in Queen Creek, Arizona, with an annual capacity of 11 gigawatt hours of cylindrical batteries. A 1.7 trillion won ($1.3 billion) investment had been planned to be injected in

Industry June 29, 2022

LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo on Wednesday marks his fourth anniversary at the helm of the nation’s fourth-largest conglomerate, with his leadership taking shape, though not yet completed. Koo, then 40, took office as chairman and CEO of LG Corp., the holding unit, on June 29, 2018, following the death of his father, Chairman Koo Bon-moo. He was the youngest person to lead one of the nation’s top four chaebol groups, which also include Samsung, SK and Hyundai Motor. Pragmatism i

Industry June 28, 2022

The nation’s four refiners -- SK Innovation, GS Caltex, S-Oil and Hyundai Oil Bank -- are expected to post record earnings in the second quarter this year, with sky-high oil prices boosting their operating margins. But they are under heavy social and political pressure as their thriving business means higher energy bills for consumers. Commodity prices rise and fall dramatically and refiners are sometimes threatened with a tax on their “extraordinary” profit at times of high

Industry June 27, 2022

LG Electronics and Kakao Mobility have teamed up to create a new ecosystem for future mobility as they jointly develop services like delivery robots and in-car infotainment systems. The two firms recently signed a memorandum of understanding, with their chief technology officers in attendance, they said in a statement Wednesday. Their partnership involves a slew of new projects on in-car user experience, delivery robots, connected home appliances, vehicle communications for passenger safety

Technology June 22, 2022

South Korea’s chaebol groups are expected to take a more cautious approach toward hiring and spending as they brace for rough times ahead amid widespread fears of an economic downturn. Samsung Group held a rare CEO meeting on Monday, almost five years since a weekly meeting of top executives across affiliates was suspended following the dissolution of the Future Strategy Office, also dubbed as the group’s control tower, in 2017. According to Samsung, a total of 25 CEOs of key aff

Industry June 21, 2022

LG Chem said Monday that it is building its first hydrogen plant in South Korea as part of efforts to become carbon neutral throughout its petrochemical production. The plant, to be located in its Daesan complex, some 75 kilometers southwest of Seoul, will have an annual production capacity of 50,000 tons of hydrogen by the second quarter of 2024, with the construction work to start early next year. The facilities for cracking naphtha at a high temperature, known as naphtha cracking centers,

Technology June 20, 2022

Naver’s cloud computing arm Naver Cloud said Monday it has partnered with US chip giant Qualcomm and local drone developer Argosdyne to build the nation’s first drones running on the 5G wireless network. Under the partnership, Naver Cloud will build the 5G network infrastructure for drone services, while Argosdyne will develop drones that can be operated to run on Qualcomm’s Flight RB5 5G platform. Flight RB5 5G is the world’s first artificial intelligence- and 5G-ena

Technology June 20, 2022

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong on Tuesday met with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to discuss chip partnership, especially on a stable supply of cutting-edge equipment for making advanced chips. Lee, on his two-week Europe trip that started on June 7, was visiting the Netherlands, home to Samsung’s key suppliers, including ASML, the world’s sole producer of extreme ultraviolet lithography systems. According to industry sources, Lee reportedly asked the Dutch PM to

Technology June 15, 2022

LG Display said Wednesday it has secured fresh funding worth $1 billion from multiple global banks with the aim to expand its presence in the smaller OLED market which is dominated by its archrival Samsung Display. LG Display is the world’s largest manufacturer of large OLED panels for TVs, but still remains a distant No. 2 in the smaller OLED market for smartphones and other mobile devices. The firm said it has raised long-term loans from the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, HS

Technology June 15, 2022

SK On and Posco Holdings said Wednesday that they have forged a strategic partnership in a move to secure a stable ecosystem for their burgeoning battery business amid deepening worries over global supply chain disruptions. They plan to create a working-level group to work together on global expansion, joint investment in raw materials, a road map for cathode development, expansion of anode supplies and a collection network for used batteries. The extensive partnership comes as both firms are

Technology June 15, 2022

LG Group’s IT solutions unit LG CNS said Tuesday it has been named as a Premier Tier Partner for US cloud giant Amazon Web Services, a recognition given to the most experienced partners representing their respective markets. AWS offers tiers – select, advanced and premier – to recognize its partners that have proven technical expertise and demonstrated customer experience and the highest premier tier is offered to leaders in their markets in terms of the number of clients and

Technology June 14, 2022

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong reportedly met with BMW Group Chairman Olive Zipse last week in Germany in an apparent move to renew his commitment to Samsung’s electric vehicle battery business, as well as its long-held partnership with the luxury carmaker. According to news reports Monday, the Samsung chief’s first stop of his two-week Europe trip that began last Tuesday was Germany. And he held a meeting with the BMW chief at the carmaker’s Munich headquarte

Technology June 13, 2022

Merck Korea, the local subsidiary of the German science and technology giant, said Thursday that it has completed expansion work of its local production plant in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province. In October 2020, the company announced plans to invest 20 million euros ($21 million) into expanding facilities at the plant to produce key materials for organic light-emitting diode displays that had been imported from Germany. “We can now quickly respond to customer requests and demands in Asia

Technology June 9, 2022

SK hynix said Thursday it has started mass production of HBM3, the world’s best-performing DRAM, or dynamic random access memory, product, with the first batch being supplied to US chip giant Nvidia. Referring to high-bandwidth memory, the latest development vertically interconnects multiple DRAM chips, drastically increasing data processing speed compared to traditional DRAM chips. The latest HBM3 DRAM is the fourth generation of its HBM product. SK hynix, the world’s second-lar

Technology June 9, 2022