Global AI companies are accelerating efforts to target South Korea’s sovereign AI market, focused on AI infrastructure controllable by governments and enterprises. Palantir held a second pop-up event in Korea, while Mistral began hiring in Seoul and Cohere outlined plans to set up local entities and double Asia-Pacific staff by year-end. The article also rounds up moves by OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Salesforce and others, including models, acquisitions, investments and cloud and AI agent infrastructure tools.

As companies push to overhaul operations with AI, cyber attackers are also accelerating their own AI-driven shift. Hackers are moving beyond using AI to build ransomware tools, using it to search breached networks and expand access. Microsoft and other reports describe AI agents automating attacks and changing credentials to maintain persistence. Executives and security experts warn AI is amplifying vulnerabilities and could trigger a wave of incident disclosures in coming weeks and months.