South Korea's domestic AI foundation model project has entered a second round with four teams, while detailed criteria for judging “originality” remain undisclosed. The science ministry previously set three standards, including rejecting simple fine-tunes of overseas models and the use of frozen external encoder weights. Naver Cloud failed the first round over the frozen-encoder issue. The ministry says it will clarify standards, but participating firms want faster guidance. Open-source use is also a point of contention.

Superfast, the holding company of 111 Percent and an IP-based culture-tech company, is teaming up with Loud Corporation to expand a global IP ecosystem. Superfast said it signed a strategic partnership with Loud Corporation to jointly develop and commercialise IP. The two will jointly design new original IP that considers games and K-culture elements and build an integrated pipeline spanning planning, production, investment, platform expansion and distribution. Superfast will also make a strategic investment to become Loud Corporation's third-largest shareholder.