LG Uplus said on Feb. 18 it will use 'MWC 2026' in Barcelona, Spain, next month to put 10 South Korean AI startups on the global stage.

The participating companies will join 4YFN (4 Years From Now), a side event of MWC, to discuss the possibility of technology cooperation and business linkups with global companies and investment firms. 4YFN is an event that discovers about 1,000 promising startups each year and connects them to networking and investment opportunities, and it will be held again this year in Hall 8 of Fira Gran Via.

LG Uplus will support participation costs such as airfare, accommodation and booth rental fees so that 10 companies, including AIM Intelligence, Enhance, OptAI, CipherData, Fairytech, ICTK, FortyTwoMaru, IHFB, Turing and Grobe, can focus on on-site meetings and awards responses. In particular, 5 of them are participants in LG Uplus' AI open innovation programme Shift and are collaborating in the areas of security, IxiO and sLLM.

Among Shift partners, AIM Intelligence, Enhance and OptAI were selected as finalists for the 4YFN Awards Top 20. This year's Top 20 includes 6 companies from Spain, 3 from Britain and 3 from South Korea, and all 3 South Korean companies are LG Uplus partner companies.

LG Uplus plans to continue expanding support for startups' global expansion linked to the Shift programme, using this support for participation in MWC26 4YFN as a stepping stone. It is also reviewing ways to create a joint fund with key partner companies and cooperating institutions to support innovative startups and foster an open innovation investment ecosystem.

Kim Sung-mook (김성묵), head of investment and partnerships at LG Uplus, said, "It is meaningful that we are introducing South Korean AI startups on the global stage and creating touchpoints that can lead to real business opportunities." He added, "We will continue to build cooperation models that allow us to grow together with promising startups."