[Market Focus] Saltlux Soars 20% on Expectations of AI Startup Support from Lee Administration

With President Lee Jaemyung's administration signaling support for artificial intelligence (AI), the stock prices of related companies such as Saltlux have been surging.

As of 10:00 a.m. on June 9, Saltlux shares were trading at 58,100 won, up 21.4% from the previous day. Shares of Konan Technology also rose 17.1% during the same period, reaching 43,450 won. As President Lee has pledged to strengthen AI investment and foster startups, investor sentiment appears to be concentrating on AI startups, which sit at the intersection of these promises.

Previously, during his campaign, President Lee emphasized his intention to actively nurture 'global K-unicorns' focused on deep tech and fintech, and to create a venture investment market worth 40 trillion won annually. He also pledged to promote a public-private joint investment of 100 trillion won in the AI sector, aiming to make South Korea one of the world's top three AI powerhouses.

Saltlux is a domestic AI specialist company that has independently developed the large language model (LLM) 'Lucia.' In addition, its AI search service 'Goover' has entered the full-scale commercialization phase. Lucia ranked among the top in global language model evaluations. Goover offers a variety of features, including in-depth Q&A and automated report generation.

Konan Technology is the only domestic company that supplies AI software (SW) on a significant scale to the defense sector. Leveraging nine years of accumulated technological expertise, the company is making inroads into the defense AI market. Inspired by the model of the U.S. AI software company Palantir, Konan Technology is also exploring the possibility of utilizing data in collaboration with hospitals and insurance companies.