It looks like South Korea will be teaming up with Elon Musk’s arch enemy Sam Altman in order to push its goal of becoming the AI hub of Asia:

President Lee Jae Myung met OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the US entrepreneur behind the AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT, as the latter visited Seoul on Wednesday. The two reached tentative agreements to set up two new data centers needed to meet Korea’s growing artificial intelligence demands.

At the meeting held at the presidential office in Seoul, Lee and Altman exchanged their views on South Korea’s ambition to become an AI hub for the Asia-Pacific region. Also attending the meeting were Lee Jae-yong, executive chair of chipmaker Samsung Electronics, and Chey Tae-won, chair of SK Group, the parent company of chipmaker SK hynix.

Revealing that he was one of Korea’s many ChatGPT subscribers, Lee said Altman “opened up a whole new world, which could be either delightful or dangerous,” and asked that Altman make a world that is the former. ChatGPT’s popularity has recently grown sharply in Korea, where its monthly active users exceeded 20 million in August.

Altman responded that he was excited to support South Korea’s AI ambitions and needs, and to develop AI to its full potential to bring it to the world.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

What a disaster this has turned into. Why were such sensitive data servers located near lithium ion batteries known to cause fires? Hopefully other governments and businesses are looking at where their cloud based storage is located at in order to prevent something like this from happening again:

The government’s official document storage system has been destroyed in last week’s fire at the state data management agency, wiping out work documents of the nation’s 750,000 civil servants, the interior ministry said Wednesday.

The cloud-based repository, known as G Drive, was among the 96 systems that burned down in Friday’s fire at the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) in Daejeon, about 140 kilometers south of Seoul, according to the ministry.

As the system is not backed up externally, all documents stored on the repository have been lost. Government employees have been advised to save all work-related documents on G Drive since 2018, rather than on their computers.

Government branches that have exclusively used the system to store work documents are expected to experience significant disruptions to operations.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It seems Trump is fighting more to protect California’s film industry than there own governor who’s tax policies have caused studios to flee the state for filming:

US President Donald Trump announced Sunday via Truth Social that he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all movies produced outside the United States, making his second such declaration in five months.

The statement came without an implementation timeline or enforcement mechanism.

Without providing evidence, Trump claimed that foreign countries were “stealing” American film production through tax incentives. He cited California as being “particularly hard hit.”

The announcement left more questions than answers.

It remains unclear how such a tariff would work in practice. Would it apply to streaming content or just theatrical releases? How would authorities calculate the levy on intellectual property rather than physical goods? Sunday’s announcement also provided no definition of what constitutes a foreign-made film.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Chung actually seems giddy to be declaring that North Korea can strike the U.S. mainland with their ICBMs:

Unification Minister Chung Dong-young has said North Korea is capable of hitting the U.S. mainland, apparently referring to the North’s recent development of its intercontinental ballistic missiles, in rare public remarks about Pyongyang’s weapons capability. 

Chung made the remarks at a press conference in Berlin on Monday (local time) during his ongoing visit to Germany as South Korea’s representative to attend a ceremony marking German unification.

“North Korea has become one of the three countries capable of attacking the U.S. mainland,” Chung told reporters. “What needs to be acknowledged should be acknowledged rationally.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but North Korea’s ICBMs are not fully tested yet with many questions about their reentry systems. Additionally even if they do work they would have to overcome U.S. missile defenses as well.

Right now with the Kim regime having all their needs met through their partnership with the Russians, there is really no urgency to pursue peace talks with the ROK or the US:

South Korea’s president has asked President Donald Trump to become “a peacemaker” and use his leadership to get North Korea to talks to reduce military tensions on the Korean Peninsula, the South’s top diplomat said Friday. Trump “welcomed” the request from President Lee Jae Myung and “he expressed his willingness to be engaged with North Korea again,” Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said in an interview with the Associated Press. There was no immediate word from the White House. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met three times as North Korea was building a nuclear weapons stockpile, which Kim views as key to the country’s security and his continued rule of the northeast Asian nation.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

It looks like President Lee has the Japanese leadership bought into his fantasy of denuclearizing North Korea:

 President Lee Jae Myung held summit talks Tuesday with outgoing Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in the southeastern city of Busan, where the two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and to cooperate amid a shifting global trade order.

The meeting came about a month after Lee’s visit to Tokyo, marking the first visit in 21 years by a Japanese leader to a location other than Seoul.

In their third meeting, Lee said Seoul and Tokyo should face history while pursuing “future-oriented” cooperation to address shared challenges, such as low birth rates and an aging population.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but at this point I can’t believe any of these world leaders are stupid enough to actually think Kim Jong-un would give up his nukes. Denuclearization seems more like a talking point than an actual diplomatic strategy at this point.