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​Korea is one of the world's most active AI adopters and an important stop as China's open-source AI goes global. On October 2, Seoul gets a meetup built for that exchange. Experts from China's leading open-source model teams, vertical solution specialists from major tech companies, and a new generation of AI builders will meet Korean developers face to face and trade best practices in both directions.

OpenSource AI Mixer

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Over the past two years, China's AI models, including Kimi, MiniMax, and Qwen, now rank among the best in the world. Most developers in Seoul still meet that progress secondhand, through news, demo videos, and social media, with distance and time zones in the way.

Korea is one of the world's most active AI adopters and an important stop as China's open-source AI goes global. On October 2, Seoul gets a meetup built for that exchange. Experts from China's leading open-source model teams, vertical solution specialists from major tech companies, and a new generation of AI builders will meet Korean developers face to face and trade best practices in both directions.

Why China 🇨🇳 · The Front Line of Open-Source AI

  • Frontier models, open weights: Many of the world's top open-weight models come from China. In 2026, Kimi K3, Qwen3.8-Max, and DeepSeek V4 all launched with open weights. Each has more than a trillion parameters, and anyone can download, deploy, and build on them for free. Moonshot AI reports that Kimi K3 beat Claude Opus 4.8 and GPT 5.5 on coding and agent benchmarks. Frontier-level model capability now sits in developers' own hands.
  • Fast releases, low prices: MiniMax M3's output pricing is about one-twentieth of Claude Opus 4.8's. Chinese teams ship new versions every few weeks, at a fraction of the price of closed US models. For high-volume apps like game NPCs and entertainment, the same budget goes much further.
  • From models to products to the physical world: At WAIC 2026, more than 1,100 companies exhibited and 300+ products made their global debut. Chinese teams build the models and the products people use every day: AI assistants like Kimi and Doubao, AI video tools like Hailuo, and coding and workplace agents moving into enterprise workflows. Off the screen, humanoid robots from companies like Unitree are going from showcase demos to mass production.

Photography: Photos and video will be taken at this event and may be used by Dev Korea and other co-hosts for this event. Our photographer will ask at the start of the event if anyone prefers not to appear, and you can also tell us at check-in.

Don’t worry about perfect English! We welcome everyone, and many attendees speak Korean too. Come as you are, let’s learn and connect together!

Venue

Gangnam Area (Exact location coming soon!)

Schedule

  • 6:30pm - 6:50pm: Check-in + Food
  • 6:50pm - 7:05pm: Opening + Introduction to The Arch
  • 7:05pm - 7:25pm: Speaker Session 1 - Ant Group · Alipay/Model Team · Open-Source/AI Technical Expert
  • 7:25pm - 7:45pm: Speaker Session 2 - Cecilia Zhang, Founder, Aomi Labs
  • 7:45pm - 8:25pm: Roundtable
    • Host: Agwn, Founder & CEO, Formula Labs
    • Florian Ludot, Co-founder & CEO, Dev Korea
    • Sigrid Jin, Korean-Canadian developer, representing Korea's Gen Z builders
    • KleinHE, Founder of Trellis, China's GenZ OpenSource builder (tbc)
  • 8:25pm - 9:00pm: Networking + Closing

About The Arch

The Arch is a three-week immersive program in China's technology and innovation ecosystem, co-hosted by PROPELLER. From November 1 to 21, 2026, it travels across Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen, visiting 50+ companies and institutions and speaking with 60+ guests.

The team behind The Arch has spent six years in China's open-source and AI ecosystem. Past initiatives include China's largest open-source market and the inaugural Tech PodFest. The team also runs an international open-source community founded by AI builders, which reaches nearly 100,000 people across Chinese-language platforms. Its long-term ties include Startup Grind, 100+ open-source communities, and 80+ incubators and accelerators worldwide.

🔗 Learn more about The Arch

👉 Interested in joining? Apply here

About Aomi Labs

Aomi Labs builds the execution harness for onchain finance, the "Vercel for crypto agents." Its serverless runtime turns user intent into policy-checked, simulated transactions that return to the user's own wallet for approval, so AI agents can handle complex smart contract interactions and on-chain automation without each team building its own transaction, simulation, and custody pipeline.

The non-custodial, wallet-agnostic platform serves traders, asset managers, and wallet providers, cutting typical build timelines from months to days.

About PROPELLER

PROPELLER is a leading AI-native ecosystem builder that helps companies grow internationally through Strategic Growth, Partner Scouting, and Fundraising. It works with university networks, accelerators, research labs, and investment and incubation partners worldwide to help AI builders find a path, open doors, secure resources, and build a team.

Note

This event will be conducted primarily in English, but Korean speakers are very welcome!

What is Dev Korea?

We are a community dedicated to building a fair, transparent tech ecosystem in Korea. Dev Korea connects English-speaking developers, entrepreneurs, and tech professionals through networking events, job opportunities, and knowledge sharing. Our mission is to foster collaboration and growth within Korea's international tech scene.

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