Lee meets with OpenAI, Nvidia, Broadcom, Anthropic CEOs│Young Koreans rediscover sauna culture

I hope that you’re having a fun and/or relaxing Saturday! In this weekend’s longer reads, we’ll look at President Lee Jae Myung’s meetings with the CEOs of OpenAI, Nvidia, Broadcom and Anthropic; why young Koreans have been rediscovering sauna culture; a hands-on program that teaches you how to make traditional Korean desserts and crafts; a court ruling ordering SK Chairman Chey Tae-won to pay 944 billion won ($644 million) to his former wife; and a cyberattack involving Korean diplomats.

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Lee meets with OpenAI, Nvidia, Broadcom, Anthropic chiefs to discuss Korea’s transformation into AI society

President Lee Jae Myung met separately with the chief executives of four global technology companies — Anthropic, OpenAI, Nvidia and Broadcom — in San Francisco on Friday to seek support for the Korean government’s “three megaprojects,” aimed at transforming Korea into an AI-driven economy.

During the meetings, Lee outlined his vision for an “AI nation” and called for closer cooperation between Korean and U.S. companies in semiconductors, data centers, sovereign AI and large language models.

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Hot, naked fun: Why young Koreans flock to saunas in search of digital detox

Attendance at neighborhood public bathhouses — once a cornerstone of daily life in Korea — has been in decline for years, battered by the pandemic, rising utility costs and changing lifestyles.

Yet even as many facilities continue to close, a surprising new generation is rediscovering sauna culture. Some are returning to neighborhood bathhouses, while others are embracing premium sauna clubs, gym saunas and curated wellness experiences.

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Rice cake parfaits and knots of love: Making Korean desserts and handicrafts in Seoul’s hanok village

One humid July weekend, I went looking for an escape from the heat. I ended up not in a heavily air-conditioned trendy cafe, but inside a traditional Korean house, or hanok, with its wooden doors wide open to the courtyard.

Inside Namsangol Hanok Village in Jung District, central Seoul, visitors removed their shoes and entered the old wooden home, gathering around low wooden tables. Through the open doors and windows, we could see the curved tile roofs of the surrounding homes. Quiet conversations filled the room.

Fifteen participants were taking part in the 70-minute “2026 Namsangol Summer Dessert Experience,” a hands-on program that combined three Korean summer desserts with a beginner-friendly knot workshop, offering participants an up-close-and-personal introduction to Korean food and crafts in a traditional hanok setting.

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Court orders SK chairman to pay ex-wife 944 billion won

A Seoul appeals court on Friday ordered SK Chairman Chey Tae-won to pay 944 billion won ($644 million) plus annual interest of five percent to his former wife, Roh Soh-yeong, in their divorce property settlement.

The Seoul High Court's decision shows that it maintained its earlier finding that Chey's shares in SK are marital property subject to division.

The amount awarded, however, was reduced by about 446.8 billion won from the 1.38 trillion won ordered in the previous appeals court ruling after the Supreme Court instructed the lower court to recalculate the division ratio. Even so, the award is about 14 times larger than the 66.5 billion won first ordered by the trial court.

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Personal data of all Korean diplomats believed leaked in ‘unprecedented’ cyberattack

The personal information of nearly all of South Korea's diplomatic personnel is presumed to have been compromised in what the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday called an "unprecedented" cyberattack, exposing up to 10,000 administrative and intelligence records.

The data system of the Korea National Diplomatic Academy (KNDA) — an institution affiliated with the Foreign Ministry that develops and runs education and training programs for diplomats and international affairs personnel across government ministries and the public sector — was belatedly revealed to have been breached between April and May of last year, with unauthorized access continuing until early February.

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