[DigitalToday reporter Hwang Chi-gyu (황치규)] As investment fervour in AI infrastructure builds, companies whose main strength is on-premises (in-house) hardware, not just cloud, are continuing to post strong growth. Many expected the presence of on-premises hardware vendors to fade as cloud spread, but the outcome is moving in a different direction. An AI-centred IT paradigm is also fairly favourable to on-premises hardware companies.

Hardware companies specialising in semiconductors as well as servers, storage and networking equipment are also posting a series of notable results on the back of the AI boom.

· Dell shares surge…Revenue up 39 percent on rising AI demand · Lenovo AI business revenue doubles...shares jump 15 percent

Industry moves are also accelerating as companies seek to expand their role as trend makers in the AI infrastructure market. At its annual Dell Technologies World (DTW) conference held recently, Dell Technologies stressed a vision of upgrading on-premises-centred AI infrastructure and providing solutions optimised for the tokenomics era. Dell’s strategy is to offer a practical alternative with on-premises-based solutions as agentic AI spreads and could increase companies’ cost burdens.

· Dell targets the tokenomics era..."Supporting enterprise AI with an AI factory" · AI token costs surge...Dell "On-premises and distributed cloud are the solution" · Dell "The core of the AI era is tokenomics"…Stresses redesigning infrastructure as tokens soar · Data centre modernisation accelerates in the AI era...Dell to significantly upgrade infrastructure solutions

As companies adjust where AI computation is carried out in response to soaring cloud costs and concerns over data sovereignty, business PCs are also drawing attention as devices for local inference.

· Soaring AI token costs...Desktop PCs play a bigger role

Other moves by companies at home and abroad around AI are summarised below.

A foreign media report said OpenAI is preparing to file documents for an initial public offering with investment banks. The report said investment banks including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are supporting work on a draft prospectus for an OpenAI IPO.

· "OpenAI targets September listing...could file IPO documents as early as this week"

An AI services corporation jointly funded by Anthropic, Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman acquired Fractional AI, an applied AI services company based in San Francisco. Fractional AI was co-founded in 2024 by Chris Taylor, Eddie Siegel and Travis May, who previously worked at data connectivity company LiveRamp. Its main strength is helping companies shift generative AI from pilot stages to actual operations. Anthropic also recruited AI expert Andrej Karpathy, who co-founded OpenAI and later served as Tesla's head of AI. Anthropic also acquired developer tools startup Stainless, which competitors including OpenAI and Google have used.

· Anthropic-led joint venture acquires Fractional AI...steps up enterprise customised AI services · OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy joins Anthropic...advances pre-training with Claude · Anthropic acquires developer tool startup Stainless, used by OpenAI and Google

Google unveiled agent coding app Antigravity 2.0 at its annual developer conference Google I/O. Attention is on whether it can shake off an image of falling behind in the coding AI race. Google also unveiled Gemini Spark, a personal agent that can move across a user's digital environment and handle tasks on the user's behalf. Google also released a multimodal AI model, Gemini Omni, that understands images, audio, video and text together and creates videos. Google will also set up an AI cloud joint venture with Blackstone using Google's in-house chips.

· Google releases Antigravity 2.0…Strengthens desktop app, CLI and SDK · Google unveils cloud-based personal AI agent 'Gemini Spark' · Google unveils 'Gemini Omni'…Creates videos using text, images and audio · Google-Blackstone set up AI-focused cloud joint venture...deploy large-scale TPUs

Google is also shifting its search service from being centred on lists of links to being centred on a conversational AI interface. The core of this overhaul is redesigning the search box, maintained for more than 25 years, on an AI basis. As Google announced a full AI-based overhaul of existing search, startups targeting the same market are also raising large-scale funding in succession.

· Google Search undergoes its biggest overhaul in 25 years…AI answers and executes instead of links · Despite Google and ChatGPT, AI search startups keep coming

YouTube introduced the conversational AI search feature 'Ask YouTube' and added Gemini Omni, Google's newly unveiled AI video model, to its Shorts creation tools.

· YouTube unveils AI search 'Ask YouTube'...adds Gemini Omni to Shorts creation tool

Spotify launched a desktop app, 'Studio by Spotify Labs', that lets users create personalised podcasts with AI. The app is expected to compete with Google NotebookLM, which generates podcasts based on materials provided by users. Stability AI unveiled Stable Audio 3.0, a new family of audio models that can generate a track 6 minutes 20 seconds long.

· Spotify challenges Google NotebookLM…Expands audio with AI podcast creation app · Stability AI releases new audio model that makes songs longer than 6 minutes

Microsoft unveiled recent global corporate innovation cases that redesign working methods and business operations and accelerate growth through its 'Frontier Transformation' strategy.

· From railways to security companies...Microsoft unveils latest global AI cases

Hancom plans to change its company name to Hancom and go all-in on its AI business. It is accelerating its transformation into a sovereign agentic OS company in particular.

· CEO Kim Yeon-su (김연수) "Hancom is fully qualified to do agentic OS business"...highlights 4 strengths · Hancom changes from Hangul and Computer to Hancom...declares transformation into sovereign agentic OS company

Hancom will supply its self-developed AI agent to LG AI Research's generative AI platform ChatEXAONE. The cooperation centres on integrating Hancom's AI agent technology into LG AI Research's ChatEXAONE service platform. Through this, the companies will pursue development of an integrated solution that encompasses Hancom's AI agent capabilities and LG AI Research's service infrastructure.

· Hancom supplies AI agent to LG's 'ChatEXAONE'...joint push into public AI market

HP Korea signed a strategic business agreement, or MOU, with South Korean AI company Upstage on AI agents. The two companies plan to help enterprises of various sizes build AI work environments more stably based on HP workstations and customised AI agents.

· HP Korea partners with Upstage...combines HP workstations and AI agents

SK AX launched 'AXgenticWire Compliance', an AI service that pre-identifies content that could become a legal issue, such as 'greenwashing', and provides response measures. Romin, a document AI agent specialist, attracted strategic investment from Naver Cloud and is expanding its cloud-based document AI business.

· SK AX blocks 'greenwashing' with AI...supports preventing corporate reputational risk · Romin attracts investment from Naver Cloud...expands cloud-based document AI business

Amorepacific, a leading South Korean cosmetics company, is accelerating moves to expand its business DNA beyond cosmetics into beauty tech based on cloud and AI. Amorepacific is also eyeing healthcare services.

· [Case Story] Amorepacific gains momentum evolving into a tech platform..."Will change beauty experience with AI"

As the competitive landscape in enterprise software is rapidly being reshaped around AI agents, competition among related companies to lead the early race also appears to be intensifying. In this process, an AI data war has emerged as a hot issue. More companies are blocking external companies' products from accessing their platforms. Microsoft, a giant in business software, has also joined this trend.

· Capture the AI agent data layer...tensions rise among leading companies

In the AI startup ecosystem, a phenomenon in which revenue is increasingly concentrated in Anthropic and OpenAI, the so-called 'big two', is becoming more pronounced. A recent report by The Information shows the revenue gap between the big two and the rest of AI startups is widening. The big two's share has risen to as high as 89 percent.

· AI startup ecosystem sees deepening concentration in 'Anthropic and OpenAI'

In the enterprise software arena, views have recently shifted sharply on the 'customisation strategy', a term that used to represent outdated IT. AI agents are the reason. According to the industry, as AI agents spread, customisation—developing software tailored to internal corporate environments—has rapidly emerged as a keyword symbolising the future rather than the past to be discarded.

· Birth of AI-era SI business...Big Tech launches major 'FDE' offensive