SM Entertainment CAO Lee Sung-soo and K-pop icon Kangta are set to take the stage as speakers at the SBS D Forum (SDF).
Marking its 21st year, the SBS D Forum will be held Thursday, Nov. 13 at Seoul’s Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP).
Under the theme “Redesigning the Zero Era: Rewriting Innovation,” leading voices in global economics and AI will gather to chart what’s next. As tariff battles, intensifying U.S.-China tech rivalry and the breakneck pace of AI fuel uncertainty, SDF poses a blunt question for an era of stalled growth: What should we leave behind, and what must we rebuild?
The forum opens with remarks from SBS President Bang Moon-shin, followed by a keynote from MIT economist Daron Acemoglu ― last year’s Nobel economics laureate and author of "Why Nations Fail" and "Power and Progress." A leading thinker on how institutions drive national rise and decline, Acemoglu has closely studied Korea, calling it a rare case of balanced progress in technology and institutions and crediting productivity gains through technology for its growth even amid rapid aging.
Kicking off the first session, Stanford’s Fei-Fei Li ― often dubbed the “godmother of AI” and the creator of ImageNet, the dataset that taught computers to “see” and underpins advances from Google Lens and DALL·E to self-driving and facial recognition ― will share her take on the “next AI.” As she’s put it, to truly move forward, AI must evolve from systems that only “see and speak” to ones that can act.
Also drawing attention is SM Entertainment’s session, “30 Years of SM, 30 Years of K-pop,” led by CAO Lee and creative director Kangta.
A two-decade A&R veteran on the front lines of K-pop, Lee will join Kangta ― the acclaimed vocalist, songwriter-producer and first-generation K-pop star ― to reflect on the innovations that propelled K-pop into a global genre and the challenges ahead. Even in the age of AI, they argue, what remains irreplaceable are emotion and storytelling ― and K-pop’s peak is still to come.
The 21st SBS D Forum airs live on SBS starting at 8:30 a.m. KST on Thursday, Nov. 13.
(SBS Entertainment News | Kang Sun-ae)