South Korea's Kospi surges record 17% as AI-driven tech rally returns- Moneycontrol.com

• Asia-Pacific markets surged on July 31, led by a massive 16% rebound in South Korea's Kospi and a 6% jump in Japan's Nikkei 225. • The rally was driven by renewed investor optimism in AI spending following strong earnings reports from tech giants Microsoft and Amazon.

• South Korea’s Kospi index surged nearly 18% as artificial intelligence-related chipmaking stocks rebounded following losses earlier in the week. • Other Asian markets saw significant movement, including an 8% jump in Taiwan’s Taiex driven by a 10% increase for chipmaker TSMC and a 0.9% gain for the Shanghai Composite.

• Guotai Haitong Securities hosted the "AI Foresight, Co-Creating the Future" forum during the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference held from July 17 to 20. • The event gathered nearly 1,000 experts and business leaders to showcase the company's "All in AI" strategy and its deployment across the securities industry chain.

• The KOSPI index surged 15%, climbing past the 6,400 mark as the AI chip rally returned to Asian markets. • The rally was driven by sharp rebounds in Samsung and SK Hynix, following strong cloud earnings reports from Microsoft and Amazon.

• DataTribe's latest report indicates that seed funding in cybersecurity is shifting toward AI agents, trusted compute, and identity controls. • The demand for AI security investment is rising as founders face increased competition, with Product Hunt launches reaching their highest levels since late 2023.

• The European Commission launched a call for tenders on July 30 to fund the construction of seven AI megafactories across Europe. • With a budget of €5 billion, these facilities will integrate supercomputers and data centers to provide the massive computing power needed to train next-generation AI models.

• A benchmark study of 3,000 European IT decision-makers reveals that while Europe's overall digital maturity score rose to 69/100, fragmented data and content silos are hindering AI progress. • Despite growth in cloud and cybersecurity, content services maturity saw a sharp decline of 13 points to 56/100, marking the only category to drop.

• The European Union has launched a €30 billion initiative to establish up to seven AI "gigafactories" to compete with the technological dominance of the US and China. • These facilities will be significantly larger than Europe's existing network of 19 AI factories, specifically designed to train frontier AI models that currently require massive computational resources.

• The European Union plans to invest 10 billion euros to establish seven AI gigafactories to enhance its computing infrastructure. • This initiative will more than double the EU's current computing capacity, which is presently served by a network of 19 AI data centers across Finland and Spain.

• The European Union has launched a call for tenders to establish up to seven "AI Gigafactories" to significantly increase the continent's computing capacity. • Backed by a €30 billion investment, these facilities can be located within a single Member State or developed as cross-border distributed computing networks.

• The European Commission has launched a €30bn initiative to establish seven AI "super-hubs" or gigafactories across the continent. • This strategic investment aims to build robust domestic AI infrastructure to break the current technological monopoly held by the United States and China.