▲ AI Prism* Customized Economic Briefing
* Editor's note: 'AI PRISM' (Analytical Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an 'artificial intelligence (AI) -based customized news recommendation and summary service' developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. We select and provide 6 customized news items for each type of reader.
? Google overtook GPT after 3 years... Shaking Open AI [AI PRISM x D? LOG]
[Key Issues Briefing]
■ Reorganization of AI supremacy: Google's latest large-scale language model (LLM) Gemini 3 took 1st place overall out of 277 AI models in the LM Arena benchmark, beating Open AI's GPT-5.1 (6th place) after 3 years. Experts analyze that an ecosystem that can utilize the vast amount of unstructured data and user behavior patterns accumulated by Google from searches, advertisements, and YouTube was the key to victory.
■ Open AI crisis: Due to unreasonable infrastructure investment of 1.4 trillion dollars compared to 14 billion dollars in annual sales of OpenAI, the surplus transition period has been delayed since 2031, and financial risks are growing. Since the introduction of Gemini 3, the “Code Red” state of emergency has been declared, development of AI agents such as shopping has been stopped, and efforts are being made to improve model performance.
■ Supply chain alliance: The United States will hold its first meeting with 8 countries including South Korea, Japan, and Singapore at the White House on the 12th to promote an AI supply chain agreement. With China controlling more than 90% of the world's rare earth refining capacity, the goal is to establish an independent supply chain covering all fields such as semiconductors, energy, and AI infrastructure.
[News of interest to global investors]
1. Geminai overtakes GPT after 3 years... Unstructured data on 'AI crude oil' is the secret
Google's Gemini 3 climbed to the top of the overall ranking by ranking first in 3 of 7 indicators including command execution, expertise, and math skills in the LM Arena Benchmark. The Last Human Test (HLE), which is an evaluation in the field of inference, also ranked 1st out of 40 LLMs with a correct answer rate of 37.5%, and GPT-5.1 remained in joint 3rd place with 23.7%. Experts identified Google's core competitiveness as being able to utilize various types of unstructured data that are not displayed on the web. Kim Jin-woo, CEO of Liner, said, “Google has built a vast ecosystem based on user behavior data built over decades from search, advertising, and YouTube.” Google quickly launched Bard and the merger of DeepMind and Google Research in less than 6 months after the launch of Chat GPT in November 2022, and it seems that they are responding quickly with flexible organizational management.
2. Unreasonable infrastructure investment “100 times annual sales”... “Deficits are inevitable until 2031”
OpenAI announced an infrastructure investment of 1.4 trillion dollars, which is three times the corporate value of 500 billion dollars, and the expected surplus transition period was delayed from 2029 to 2030 to 2031. Sam Altman, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of OpenAI, announced on the 1st that “improving chat GPT is a top priority,” and that the development schedule for AI agents and other products, such as shopping, is being postponed. NVIDIA's $100 billion investment eventually led to the purchase of NVIDIA AI chipsets, triggering circular transaction controversy, and this is likely to be a stumbling block in future public offerings (IPOs). An analysis shows that it is difficult to expect growth at the same rate as in the past 3 years, with 800 million and 650 million chat users, respectively. A tech official said, “Since there are so many companies involved, the entire industry will have no choice but to support the growth of open AI until the IPO is successful.”
3. 'AI supply chain alliance' with 8 countries against the US and China
US Deputy Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and Environment, Jacob Helberg said, “On the 12th of this month, we will hold our first meeting with officials from South Korea, Japan, Singapore, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Australia at the White House.” This conference aims to go beyond simply securing minerals and sign comprehensive agreements across all fields, including energy, advanced semiconductor manufacturing, AI infrastructure, and logistics transportation. Deputy Minister Hellberg said, “The current AI market clearly has a Yangjiang structure between the US and China,” and emphasized that “we must be able to develop innovative technologies without coercive dependence on China.” According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), China controls over 90% of the world's rare earths and permanent magnet refining capacity. US Secretary of Commerce Howard Rutnick predicted that the first investment of the Korea-Japan Fund to the United States will be the construction of a nuclear power plant.
[Global Investor Reference News]
4. Bank interest profit stagnates for 3 years... net interest margins are still half of beauty
According to the Financial Supervisory Service, the interest profit of domestic banks is actually in place, with 55.9 trillion won surpassing 50 trillion won in 2022, then recording 59.20 trillion won in 2023 and 59.30 trillion won last year. While total credit increased by 6.47% last year compared to 2023, interest income only increased by 0.16%. Net interest margin (NIM) also reached 1.57% last year, which is only half the level of US commercial banks, which is 3%. 2023 was a time when former President Yoon Suk-yul strongly pressured bankers, saying “small business owners are managing banks,” and banks cut interest rates and drastically increased common people's finance at the time. Starting next year, the education tax rate will rise from 0.5% to 1% for revenue exceeding 1 trillion won, causing an additional burden of approximately 1.2 trillion won per year.
5. Stock market 'restructuring' to launch early next year... like benchmarking Japan
The results of research services ordered by the Korea Exchange to reorganize the securities market, KOSDAQ, and CONNEX systems will come out early next year. The Korea Exchange plans to improve the stock market system as early as the first half of next year based on the results of financial authorities and research services. The market believes that the Japanese case is most likely to be used. In Japan, in 2022, the Tokyo Stock Exchange reorganized 5 existing markets into 3 markets, including Prime, Standard, and Growth, and strengthened governance requirements and standards for new listings and maintaining listings. In order to maintain a listing on the Prime market, it is necessary to meet conditions such as a market capitalization of at least 10 billion yen of liquid shares, a current share ratio of 35% or more, and holding a majority of independent outside directors within the board of directors. Foreigners made net purchases worth 7.135.3 trillion won in the securities market in the last 6 months, while the KOSDAQ market only bought 438.9 billion won, so the trend towards large cap stocks is prominent.
6. The additional weakening of the won is limited
At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, the Korea-US investment negotiations were settled with an upper limit of 20 billion dollars per year and a total cash investment of 200 billion dollars, but the exchange rate did not drop significantly. If 15 billion dollars are covered by foreign asset management income, foreign exchange reserves will not increase significantly for 10 years, and additional procurement of 5 billion dollars through fund bonds is inevitable. Externally, there is a clear trend of the won being linked to the yen. After Takaichi took office in Japan, expectations for expansionary fiscal and accommodative monetary policies were formed, and the yen continued to weaken, and the won was also exposed to weakening. However, the value of the yen is showing signs of recovery due to the Japanese government's intention to intervene in the foreign exchange market and the Bank of Japan's interest rate hike in December. In Korea, the government is also pursuing measures to stabilize pension fund profitability and the foreign exchange market, and the narrowing of the growth gap with the US next year and the incorporation of the global leading bond index into WGBI from April to November are also expected to be beneficial.
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