Tech
More US investors sue South Korean government over handling of Coupang data breach
Coupang’s massive data breach in South Korea has now become a geopolitical flashpoint as a growing number of the company’s U.S. investors take legal action against the South Korean government.
What began as a regulatory investigation into data security failures has expanded into a broader dispute over alleged unfair treatment of the U.S.-headquartered company.
While Coupang — which operates in South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan — is often referred to as the “Amazon of South Korea,” its worldwide headquarters are actually in Seattle, Washington.
The company’s investors are now seeking international arbitration under the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA). On January 23, 2026, U.S. investment firms Greenoaks and Altimeter filed a notice with South Korea’s Ministry of Justice, saying they suffered losses from what they characterized as the government’s discriminatory investigation into the data breach. They said they plan to pursue investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) arbitration under the U.S.-Korea FTA.
South Korea’s Ministry of Justice said Thursday that three more investors, including Abrams Capital, Durable Capital Partners, and Foxhaven Asset Management have now joined the case. They are alleging the government acted unlawfully toward the e-commerce company.
To recap the incident: In December, Coupang disclosed that nearly 34 million Korean customers’ personal information had been leaked in a data breach that had been going on for more than five months. The breach involved customer names, email addresses, phone numbers, shipping addresses, and certain order histories, the company said.
While other tech breaches in Korea resulted in less severe penalties, Coupang has faced extraordinary government pressure. The government reportedly threatened massive fines, suspension of operations, and travel bans for executives while Coupang’s investors allege it also sought to block public communication and repeatedly misrepresented the scope of the breach.
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Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) said that more than 30 million Coupang accounts were exposed — but the facts point to just 3,000 affected accounts, according to Coupang’s investors.
In December, South Korea’s government and the PIPC said the Coupang breach was serious enough to justify higher fines. Under current law, penalties are capped at 3% of revenue, more than $800 million for Coupang, according to the U.S. investors, but some lawmakers have proposed raising the limit to 10% and applying it retroactively.
Even if the new law passes, it wouldn’t apply to Coupang, since the breach occurred before the rules changed. But a Democratic Party lawmaker in the country suggested imposing punitive fines, through either new legislation or a special parliamentary act, and PIPC backed the idea, per news reports. South Korean president Lee Jae Myung also publicly called for heavy penalties, suggesting the company had not faced sufficient consequences.
Based on the notice of intent filing released by the investors’ legal adviser, the investors argue that the South Korean government’s actions constitute an “unprecedented assault” on Coupang. In the filing, they argue:
The Government’s unprecedented assault on a U.S. company to benefit its Korean and Chinese competitors is an egregious violation of the Treaty, principles of international law, and the historic partnership between Korea and the United States … The Government’s shocking conduct has left the U.S. investors with no choice. If the Government does not immediately cease its attacks against Coupang, fully restore the company’s ability to operate its business, and permanently end its longstanding campaign of discrimination against the company, then the U.S. investors will be forced to seek billions of dollars in damages from Korea to protect their investments in Coupang and remedy the Government’s ongoing Treaty violations, including attempted expropriation.
The filing is a preliminary, pre-litigation step. South Korea’s Ministry of Justice is now reviewing the notice of intent, which kicks off a mandatory 90-day consultation period before formal arbitration can begin.
Coupang, Abrams Capital, and Foxhaven Asset Management did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment. Durable Capital Partners could not be reached.
According to the investors’ filing, South Korea’s handling of data breaches has been inconsistent, specifically citing other recent data breaches in South Korea, including KakaoPay, SK Telecom, Upbit, and Alibaba’s AliExpress.
KakaoPay reportedly transferred 54 billion customer records to Alipay Singapore, yet faced only a $10 million fine and a CEO warning, while SK Telecom was fined $91 million after a massive SIM card breach. Upbit and AliExpress also saw minimal government action. The investors say these examples underscore the stark contrast with the government’s response to Coupang.
South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT said Wednesday that the Coupang data breach was carried out by a former employee who had worked on the company’s authentication systems and was aware of vulnerabilities in both the authentication framework and key management system.
The Ministry alleges that Coupang failed to report the breach to the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) within 24 hours and did not fully implement a November 2025 data preservation order, leading to the deletion of key web and app access logs. The ministry has referred the matter to investigators and ordered Coupang to submit a prevention plan by February 2026, with compliance monitored through July.
Coupang released a statement, saying that the employee, a Chinese national, accessed data from over 33 million accounts but retained only about 3,000 before deleting it, and that no sensitive info such as payment data, passwords, or government IDs was accessed.
Coupang also replaced its CEO, Park Dae-jun, with Harold Rogers, its U.S. parent’s top lawyer, in December.
Adam Farrar, senior associate at CSIS and senior geoeconomics analyst for APAC at Bloomberg, said on Tuesday’s Impossible State podcast that what began as a major data breach involving Coupang has grown into a broader issue between the United States and South Korea.
Farrar said that the case is amplifying broader U.S. claims of unfair treatment toward American technology firms, raising trade and tariff risks for South Korea as the U.S. Congress becomes increasingly engaged.
“The massive data breach [by Coupang] led to a series of investigations in the National Assembly and some very combative back and forth with Coupang and a series of executives over the past several months,” Farrar said in the podcast. “The additional dynamic here is that Coupang, while driving almost all of its earnings from Korea, is now a U.S.-based company that adds to the dynamic on both sides, impacting how they’re perceived and seen.”
The issue extends beyond Coupang, raising broader questions about whether South Korea is unfairly targeting U.S. companies, Farrar continued.
Critics point to digital policies they say favor domestic firms, including network usage fees on content providers like Netflix, Apple’s App Store and Google Play payment rules, and data localization requirements that limit services like Google Maps on national security grounds.
Tech
Exclusive: Google deepens Thinking Machines Lab ties with new multi-billion-dollar deal
Former OpenAI executive Mira Murati’s startup, Thinking Machines Lab, has signed a new multi-billion-dollar agreement to expand its use of Google Cloud’s AI infrastructure, including systems powered by Nvidia’s latest GPUs, TechCrunch has exclusively learned.
The deal is valued in the single-digit billions, according to a source familiar with the matter, and includes access to Google’s latest AI systems built atop Nvidia’s new GB300 chips, alongside infrastructure services to support model training and deployment.
Google has been actively striking a number of cloud deals with AI developers as it aims to wrap together its AI computing offerings with other cloud services like storage, a Kubernetes engine, and Spanner, its database product. Earlier this month, Anthropic signed an agreement with Google and Broadcom for multiple gigawatts of tensor processing unit (TPUs) capacity (these are Google’s custom-designed AI chips for machine learning workloads).
But the competition is fierce. Just this week, Anthropic also signed a new agreement with Amazon to secure up to 5 gigawatts of capacity for training and deploying Claude.
Earlier this year, Thinking Machines partnered with Nvidia in a deal that included an investment from the chipmaker. But this is the first time the lab has struck a deal with a cloud services provider. The deal is not exclusive, so Thinking Machines may use multiple cloud providers over time, but it’s still a sign that Google is looking to lock in fast-growing frontier labs early.
Murati left her job as OpenAI’s chief technologist and founded Thinking Machines in February 2025. The company, which soon afterwards raised a $2 billion seed round at a $12 billion valuation, has remained highly secretive, but launched its first product in October. Dubbed Tinker, it’s a tool that automates the creation of custom frontier AI models.
Wednesday’s deal provided some insight into what Thinking Machines is developing. In a press release, Google noted that it can support the startup’s reinforcement learning workloads, which Tinker’s architecture relies on. Reinforcement learning is a training approach that has underpinned recent breakthroughs at labs, including DeepMind and OpenAI, and the scale of the Google Cloud deal reflects how computationally expensive that work can get.
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Thinking Machines is among the first Google Cloud customers to access its GB300-powered systems, which offer a 2X improvement in training and serving speed compared to prior-generation GPUs, per Google.
“Google Cloud got us running at record speed with the reliability we demand,” Myle Ott, a founding researcher at Thinking Machines, said in a statement.
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Tech
The most interesting startups showcased at Google Cloud Next 2026
Google Cloud Next is taking place this week in Las Vegas, and one clear message has emerged: Google wants AI startups on its cloud. To that end, it made several startup-related announcements.
The most significant is that the tech giant has earmarked a new $750 million budget to help its Cloud partners sell more AI agents to enterprises. This funding is available to partners ranging from startups to the big consulting firms. It can be used for costs like Gemini proof-of-concept projects, Google forward-deployed engineers, cloud credits, and deployment rebates.
Google also highlighted a long list of startups that are using Google Cloud, either newly signed or expanding their footprint. Among them are a few standout names:
Lovable is expanding its use of Google Cloud by launching a new coding agent through Google’s enterprise app marketplace. Lovable is the fast-growing vibe coding startup and was on a $400 million ARR track as of February, it said.
Notion, Silicon Valley’s favorite AI-infused document productivity app, most recently valued at about $11 billion, is using Gemini models to power its text and image generation features.
Gamma, an AI-powered PowerPoint killer recently valued at a $2.1 billion valuation, is using Google’s state-of-the-art image model Nano Banana 2 and other Google Cloud features.
Inferact, the commercial inference startup from the creators of the popular open-source project vLLM, is accessing Nvidia’s GPUs through Google Cloud, in addition to using the tech giant’s AI stack.
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ComfyUI, the popular open-source tool for creating AI-generated images and multimedia, also offers access to Nano Banana 2 and is using other Cloud features.
Other startups that received the Google Cloud shout-out this year include:
ChorusView, which makes AI-powered smart tags that track the condition and movement of goods in real time.
Emergent AI, a vibe coding platform.
ExaCare AI, which makes AI software for post-acute medical care facilities.
Insilica, which creates AI-generated regulatory-compliant chemical safety reports.
Optii, which makes AI-enhanced hotel operations software.
Parallel AI, which builds web search and research APIs built for AI agents.
Proximal Health, which makes AI-powered software that automates the insurance claims adjudication process.
Reducto, which does AI-powered document parsing.
Stord, which handles e-commerce fulfillment and parcel operations.
Stylitics, which makes AI image generation software for retailers for tasks like outfit styling and product bundles.
Temporal, a developer cloud environment built to prevent failures.
Vapi, which makes dev tools for building conversational voice agents.
Vurvey Labs, which conducts synthetic market research via AI agents.
Wand, an in-game assistant for single-player PC games.
Watershed, which makes software that helps enterprises report on and manage sustainability programs.
ZenBusiness, an all-in-one back-office tool for small businesses that includes an AI chat assistant.
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Tech
Duolingo is now giving free users access to advanced learning content
Duolingo announced on Wednesday that its advanced language learning content is now available for free across nine languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. Users can access this content through the web, iOS, and Android devices.
This advanced content is at the B2 level on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), which is the international standard for language skills that schools and employers recognize. B2 level content refers to learning materials without translations, complex scenarios, and specialized vocabulary.
The new offering will include features like “Advanced Stories,” which helps with reading comprehension, and DuoRadio, a podcast-like audio experience for listening comprehension.
Now that Duolingo users can tap into this advanced learning content for free, they can level up their skills, whether that’s practicing for job interviews, prepping for studying abroad, or tackling complex news articles, films, and books without relying on translations.
The company says this positions it as the only free app to offer advanced-level learning across these nine languages at no cost. While competitors like Babbel and Busuu offer advanced courses, they typically require paid subscriptions. For instance, Busuu has some CEFR-aligned courses up to the B2 level, but the free version is pretty limited and doesn’t offer lessons like grammar explanations, so users need to pay for full access.
Previously, Duolingo only provided free courses that capped at A2 or B1 levels, mainly focusing on basic communication skills.
The company is positioning this free advanced learning offering as an enticing opportunity for job seekers, framing language learning as a practical pathway to improving employability in an increasingly global workforce.
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This comes at a time when the job market remains highly competitive and overall growth has slowed. Research from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages shows that learning a second language can raise someone’s employability by as much as 50%.
“Reaching job-ready proficiency in a new language used to be out of reach for most people,” Bozena Pajak, head of learning science at Duolingo, said in a statement. “It took years of expensive classes or immersive experiences that not everyone could access.”
Duolingo’s decision to offer advanced learning for free is also a strategy to increase its free user base. In its Q4 earnings report, the company stated that it has 52.7 million daily active users, demonstrating 30% growth compared to the previous year. This number is higher than its paid subscriber base, which stands at 12.2 million. However, Duolingo’s shares fell after the company projected that the year-over-year bookings growth rate for Q2 2026 is expected to experience a slight decline.
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