IBM Tumbles 13%, Gold Breaks $5,000: AI Agents Come for Legacy IT

Samsung Electronics posted $19.3B in global DRAM revenue in Q4 2025, up 43% quarter-over-quarter, recapturing the No. 1 market share position at 36%. The company had lost the top spot for the first time in 33 years in Q1 2025—it took just three quarters to win it back. Analysts point to the start of fifth-generation HBM chip shipments to Nvidia and expanded legacy memory production. SK Hynix finished second with $17.2B in revenue and 32.1% market share. (Source: Yonhap News)

SK Hynix and US-based SanDisk have launched a consortium to establish global standards for HBF (High Bandwidth Flash), a next-generation memory technology. A dedicated working group under OCP (Open Compute Project) is set to be established. HBF is designed as a middle-tier memory layer between HBM and SSD, targeting large-scale AI inference workloads. (Source: Yonhap News)

Salesforce's AI agent platform Agentforce surpassed $800M in annualized run rate within the quarter, prompting the company to raise its FY2030 revenue target to $63B. On the same day, IBM fell 13%—its worst single-day drop since 2000—immediately after Anthropic's Claude Code published a blog post on COBOL legacy code modernization. Salesforce also recorded $811M in investment gains from its approximately 1% stake in Anthropic during the quarter. (Source: CNBC)

South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT's 2024 technology level assessment (indexed to the US at 100%) placed China at 86.8% (3rd) and South Korea at 82.8% (5th)—the first time China has surpassed Korea in the ranking. The technology gap stands at 2.1 years for China and 2.8 years for South Korea, meaning China now leads Korea by 0.7 years. The assessment covers 11 fields and 136 core technologies. (Source: South China Morning Post)

Huawei—currently under US sanctions—has joined the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF), a standards body whose 146 member organizations include OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and Microsoft. The move is a rare instance of Chinese and American AI companies working together on standard-setting. (Source: South China Morning Post)

Logistics software firm WiseTech Global announced layoffs of approximately one-third of its staff as part of its AI integration. Cognizant's chief AI officer pushed back, calling the threat to large IT firms overblown—but the WiseTech case illustrates that AI automation is already materially reducing demand for software development talent. (Source: Channel NewsAsia)

Tesla recorded zero miles of autonomous vehicle testing in California every year from 2020 through 2025. Its cumulative total since 2016 stands at just 562 miles, compared to over 13 million miles tested by Waymo since 2014 along with seven regulatory approvals. Tesla currently holds only an early-stage permit requiring a safety driver on board. (Source: Channel NewsAsia)

A $50B, 8,800-mile wave of new natural gas pipeline investment—driven by LNG producers, utilities, and Big Tech data centers—is underway. Twelve projects are expected to come online in Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma in 2026, boosting US Gulf Coast natural gas transmission capacity by 13%. It is the largest annual pipeline expansion since the shale gas boom of 2008. (Source: OilPrice)

Shell's CEO projected global LNG market growth of 3% per year, with new project startups and expanded existing capacity set to push global LNG supply up 10% in 2026. Shell is also considering selling its stake in an Australian LNG project worth approximately $24B. (Source: OilPrice)

Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) reported net income of KRW 8.73T (approximately $6.3B) for 2025, up 141% year-over-year and a new record. Operating income reached KRW 13.52T (+61.7%) on revenue of KRW 97.43T (+4.3%). However, total debt of KRW 206T and borrowings of KRW 130T remain a significant fiscal challenge—a legacy of below-cost electricity supply during the Russia-Ukraine war period from 2021. (Source: Yonhap News)

Gold prices crossed $5,000 per ounce for the first time in history. Persistent geopolitical uncertainty and global trade tensions continue to drive demand for safe-haven assets. (Source: Seeking Alpha)

Average Seoul apartment prices slowed their weekly gains for four consecutive weeks. Gangnam (-0.06%), Seocho (-0.02%), and Yongsan (-0.01%) posted their first weekly declines in roughly two years. Some multi-property owners appear to be listing ahead of the expected expiration of a capital gains tax exemption for multi-home holders in May. (Source: Yonhap News)

The Bank of Korea revised its 2026 GDP growth forecast up 0.2 percentage points to 2.0%, citing robust exports and recovering private consumption. The benchmark rate was held at 2.5% for the sixth consecutive meeting. Korea has cut rates by a cumulative 100 basis points since October 2024 (from 3.5% to 2.5%) and has held steady since May 2025. (Source: Yonhap News, Yonhap News)

South Korea and the UAE agreed to jointly pursue over $65B in cooperation projects, comprising $35B in defense and $30B in investment collaboration. Both countries also agreed to advance nuclear energy cooperation across the full fuel cycle—drawing on experience from the Barakah nuclear plant—and to pursue joint entry into third-country markets. (Source: Yonhap News)

Global investment in deep geothermal power has grown roughly 80% year-over-year since 2018, according to the IEA, with AI data centers' need for stable 24/7 power serving as a partial driver. The UK's first geothermal power plant recently came online in Cornwall, generating electricity for 10,000 homes from 190°C subsurface water—and extracting lithium as a byproduct. (Source: BBC, The Guardian)

South Korea's ruling Democratic Party and government reaffirmed their push to quickly pass special legislation implementing a $350B US investment package, with a special committee established in the National Assembly targeting a March 9 deadline. Last month, President Trump warned he would raise reciprocal tariffs on South Korea from the current 15% to 25% if legislation was delayed. (Source: Yonhap News)

Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski stated that defending NATO's eastern front against Russia would cost a minimum of €1.2T (approximately $1.4T)—24 times Poland's defense budget. While urging Europe to take greater responsibility for its own security, he underscored that this figure far exceeds current Ukraine support costs. (Source: South China Morning Post)

Ukrainian negotiator Umerov met with US envoys Witkoff and Kushner in Geneva. Following a 30-minute call between Zelensky and Trump, both sides agreed to pursue a Russia-Ukraine-US trilateral summit in early March. Zelensky described the development as "an opportunity to shift to leader-level dialogue." (Source: Al Jazeera)

Israel has sharply escalated its military operations in Syria since Assad's fall in December 2024, carrying out over 600 strikes—airstrikes, drone attacks, and artillery—throughout 2025, or roughly two per day (per ACLED data). While Israel and Syria agreed in January 2026 on a US-supervised military de-escalation mechanism, disagreement over Israeli troop withdrawal from Syrian territory remains. (Source: Al Jazeera)

The Paris Agreement Carbon Market Mechanism (PACM) officially launched with its first credit issuance. The credits come from a clean cooking project in Myanmar, with a Korean company as partner. The mechanism applies a methodology that counts emissions reductions at 40% more conservatively than previous mechanisms. (Source: Al Jazeera)

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright warned at the IEA ministerial meeting that the US would withdraw from the agency if it does not abandon the net-zero agenda within a year. The US contributes approximately $6M annually to the IEA, representing 14% of its budget. Most other ministers at the meeting emphasized the continued importance of the net-zero transition. (Source: RenewEconomy)