Korean Cinema Chain CGV Weighs IPO of Its Theater Effects Unit
The discussions are at an early stage and CJ CGV hasn't yet committed to a timeframe, nor the amount of capital it would seek to raise in a listing.
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Business Insider
2 days ago
- Business Insider
Emirates becomes the biggest airline to crack down on power banks, after a fire underscored the danger
Emirates has become the latest and largest airline to crack down on power banks. The Dubai-based carrier announced Friday that using such devices will be prohibited on board its flights, starting October 1. Though many other airlines have cracked down on the use of power banks after one caught fire on a flight in January, Emirates' rules are among the strictest. Passengers won't be allowed to charge devices with power banks, nor charge a power bank itself using a plane's outlets. They're also only allowed one, which must be under 100 Wh, and stored in the seat pocket or a bag under the seat in front, not the overhead bin. It joins Southwest Airlines, Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, and Thai Airways, among others. Authorities in Hong Kong and South Korea have also instituted rules about power banks on planes. Why airlines are cracking down on power banks On any airline, power banks must be carried in the cabin and not left in checked baggage, so cabin crew can intervene quickly to stop a fire from getting out of control. The dangers were spotlighted in January, when an Air Busan Airbus A321 caught fire before takeoff in South Korea. All 176 people aboard survived, but 27 were injured. Investigators said the fire was likely caused by a power bank, and the South Korean government announced stricter rules around their usage. Emirates said on Friday: "There has been a significant growth in customers using power banks in recent years, resulting in an increasing number of lithium battery-related incidents on board flights across the wider aviation industry." In May, a Southwest plane was forced to divert when a customer's battery charger overheated on a flight from Baltimore to Tampa. It occurred just 24 hours after the airline instituted new rules requiring customers to keep power banks visible while in use. The Southwest flight attendants followed procedures and put the device in a containment bag. The plane landed safely in South Carolina, where passengers had to wait five hours before continuing their journey on a new plane. Power banks are particularly risky because of their lithium batteries. If overcharged or damaged, it can result in thermal runaway, leading to rapid temperature increase. Unlike phones and laptops, many power banks don't have safeguards against this. Emirates has the fourth-largest network in the world by seat miles, behind only the US's Big Three. Its decision suggests more airlines could follow suit.
CNBC
2 days ago
- CNBC
South Korea launches national AI model in tech race with U.S. and China
South Korea has tasked some of its biggest companies and promising startups to build a national foundational AI model using mainly domestic technology, in a rare move to keep the country apace with the U.S. and China. The project will feature South Korean technologies from semiconductors to software, as Seoul looks to create a near self-sufficient AI industry and position itself as an alternative to China and the U.S. The Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) for Korea announced that five consortia have been selected to develop the models. One is led by SK Telecom, a telecommunications giant in Korea and includes gaming firm Krafton and chip startup Rebellions among other companies. There are other teams led by some of the country's other prominent firms including LG and Naver. "We are going through an important juncture in terms of our technological development. So Korea, at the national level, is focusing on ensuring that we lay the technical foundation to have our competitiveness," Kim Taeyoon, head of the foundation model office at SK Telecom who also leads the company's consortium, told CNBC. "Korea has many entities that would excel at creating a big AI industry. And we could clearly see the possibility that we are very capable of creating a good AI stack," Kim added. A "stack" refers to various technologies that make up a product or other technology. The initiative aims to draw on the strategic position of some of South Korea's firms and the technology they develop that are crucial to AI. For example, SK Hynix makes high-bandwidth memory (HBM) which is critical to Nvidia's products. Samsung is also another major memory player. SK Telecom has been expanding its business into data centers. While Rebellions, which is part of SKT's consortium, is developing chips designed to handle AI workloads. Samsung, meanwhile, has its own chip manufacturing business, also known as foundry. "This means the country possesses the entire AI stack, from chips to cloud to AI models, and also benefits from a robust community of advanced AI researchers who are actively publishing papers and securing patents," Nick Patience, practice lead for AI at The Futurum Group, told CNBC. Given the intricacies of technology supply chains, no one country can do it alone. The consortia will still rely on graphics processing units (GPUs) from American firm Nvidia which have become the gold standard for training AI models. Meanwhile, SK Telecom will train the models it develops on its own Titan supercomputer, which is made up of Nvidia GPUs, as well as an AI data center the company is developing with Amazon. SK Telecom is not new to the AI model game. The company launched a beta version of its first chatbot based on its own large language model in 2022 called "A." which is pronounced "A dot." Since then, it has developed more advanced versions of the model and chatbot. SK Telecom's consortium plans to release its first model by the end of the year, Kim said. It will be initially focused on the market in South Korea, but could be used globally. The model will be open-source, meaning it will free for developers to use and build on, potentially with some licensing requirements. Any AI models coming out of South Korea's project will face intense competition from players including OpenAI and Anthropic as well as many of the strong open-source offerings out of Chinese firms like Alibaba and DeepSeek. Creating an AI model won't be a problem, given SK Telecom and other companies' already-proven track record in doing so. The bigger challenge will be putting forward models that can compete with those coming out of frontier AI labs, which are pouring billions of dollars into research and development. Another issue will be getting traction among developers to build upon these models. That has what has made a success of other open-source models, like those from Alibaba. SK Telecom's Kim said the goal is to create models that can rival these other companies. "Our first goal is to create a very strong state-of-the-art open source model and we already have an example of those open source models which are on par in terms of performance with those large tech (players) like OpenAI or Anthropic," Kim told CNBC. He added that there will be models of different sizes that can be used by different industries. An open-source national AI model could also provide benefits by giving businesses across the country access to the latest technology without having to rely on a tech giant from abroad. Meanwhile, South Korean AI models could be positioned as an alternative to U.S. and Chinese-developed systems. "Beyond domestic benefits, a proven sovereign AI model presents significant export potential. Just as Korea excelled in memory chips, this could become a valuable product for other nations seeking alternatives to U.S. or Chinese systems, strengthening Korea's position in the global AI landscape," Patience said. Underpinning this push from South Korea is the concept of "sovereign AI" that has gained traction with many nations. This is the notion that AI models and services, which governments see as having strategic importance, should be built within a country and run on servers located domestically. "All major nations are increasingly concerned about AI sovereignty as the US and China vie for AI dominance," The Futurum Group's Patience said. "Given AI's growing influence on critical sectors like healthcare, finance, defense, and government, countries cannot afford to cede control of their digital intelligence to foreign entities."
CNBC
3 days ago
- CNBC
How a $100 billion pledge helped Wall Street forget about Apple's AI problems — for now
Nothing like $100 billion to make everyone forget about the AI elephant in the room for Apple. CEO Tim Cook, announcing at the White House on Wednesday afternoon a big, new investment in U.S. manufacturing, showcased the company's strength in navigating the political waters of the Trump administration to mitigate tariff headwinds. The handshake shifted the focus from Apple's perceived weakness in coming up with a clear artificial intelligence strategy. "People were really viewing this until yesterday as an AI play, meaning they didn't have AI," Jim Cramer said Thursday as Apple shares jumped for a second straight session, adding roughly 3% to Wednesday's 5% gain. While the two-day move has certainly been a step in the right direction, Apple shares were still down just over 12% year to date. Apple's new commitment of $100 billion on top of the already-pledged $500 billion over the next four years is a "very significant expansion," Jim said. "This is how the supply chain starts" in the U.S. Apple also said it would spend $2.5 billion to help expand Corning , the Kentucky-based company that manufactures glass for iPhones. As a result, all the glass for both its flagship device and the Apple Watch will be produced domestically at Corning's factory. "This is the largest investment Apple has ever made in America and anywhere else," Trump said alongside Cook. "As you know, Apple has been an investor in other countries a little bit, I won't say which ones, but a couple, and they're coming home." AAPL YTD mountain Apple (AAPL) year-to-date performance Another positive of Apple's increased investments, according to Jim, is that smartphone rival Samsung may now face an increased tariff rate if the South Korean electronics giant doesn't invest more in the U.S. Jim said that would be "very, very good news" for Apple during Thursday's Morning Meeting. "In the United States, there's a dogfight between Samsung and Apple," Jim continued. "Remember, we were thinking, 'Oh my God, Samsung's going to be cheaper than Apple.' No. Apple will be cheaper than Samsung, and that will push even more Verizon, AT & T , and T-Mobile [customers] toward Apple." While the market continued to push Apple stock higher Thursday, it doesn't mean that the company is out of the woods on artificial intelligence. Management has not only delayed the rollout of its AI suite, called Apple Intelligence, but the company has continued to lose top talent to other Big Tech names like Club holding Meta Platforms . Apple's generative AI strategy has been top of mind for investors in hopes that the new tech would usher in a much-needed upgrade cycle for the iPhone, its biggest money maker. So far, that has not been the case. AI is not Apple's only overhang. It also faces a series of legal headaches, including a government antitrust case against Alphabet that threatens billions of dollars in payments to Apple for Google search priority. Apple's long-standing legal feud with Fortnite maker Epic Games has put App Store commissions in focus. Both of these factors could weigh on Apple's crucial high-margin services business. Bottom line Overall, we're glad that Apple has taken the steps necessary to get back in the good graces of the Trump administration. Cook did it during President Donald Trump 's first term, and he did it again this time. The deal helps Apple on the tariff front, giving the company and its struggling stock a much-needed win. That said, getting AI right is still an important part of the Apple story. Jim said he is willing to wait and doesn't view the two-day rally as a reason to trim the position. "I don't want to sell Apple," Jim added. Yet again, we're reiterating our "own, don't trade" thesis on Apple stock. After all, as Jim claimed earlier this summer, Apple continues to make "the greatest product in the world." The Club currently has a hold-equivalent 2 rating on Apple shares and a price target of $240, a roughly 12% premium to Wednesday's closing level of $213. The stock closed at a record $259 per share back in late December. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long AAPL, META. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
