SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea launched a close-range ballistic missile and other weapons toward the sea on Tuesday, South Korea's military said, the latest in a series of weapons demonstrations by North Korea this year.
The missile fired from Jongju, a city near the North's west coast, flew about 80 kilometers (50 miles), South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. North Korea launched other kinds of projectiles, it said, but didn't elaborate.
South Korea's military, under a solid alliance with the U.S., maintains a readiness to repel any provocations by North Korea, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. South Korea’s military has bolstered a surveillance posture, it said.
It was North Korea's first weapons launch event since April 19, when the country fired multiple short-range missiles in what state-media described as a demonstration of cluster bomb warheads.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has focused on expanding his nuclear and missile arsenals since his nuclear diplomacy with U.S. President Donald Trump collapsed in 2019. Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to resume talks with Kim, but Pyongyang has so far ignored the overtures and urged Washington to drop demands for the North’s nuclear disarmament as a precondition for talks.
Kim has taken an increasingly hard-line stance toward South Korea, calling it his country’s permanent and most hostile enemy and taking steps to terminate all ties with its neighbor.
During a Cabinet meeting earlier Tuesday, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung called for stronger efforts to advance the country’s military. He emphasized artificial intelligence and drone capabilities, and the potential acquisition of a nuclear-powered submarine, an issue that has been part of his diplomacy with Washington.
Lee, a liberal who espouses improved ties with North Korea, didn't specifically comment on the threats posed by the North. But he stressed the importance of South Korea demonstrating the “resolve to take responsibility for and protect our own security ourselves,” saying such a posture would also strengthen the country’s alliance with the United States.
A TV screen shows a reporting of North Korea's unidentified projectile, with file footage during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
A TV screen shows a reporting of North Korea's unidentified projectile with file footage during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
AMSTERDAM--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 26, 2026--
BearingPoint announces the launch of the BearingPoint Fully-Owned Sovereign Infrastructure Stack, an infrastructure platform designed, operated, and managed entirely by BearingPoint for GenAI and agentic AI applications, consistently engineered for European sovereignty, compliance, and security. With its own data center in Graz, the solution enables companies and public institutions to run sensitive AI workloads in fully controlled, EU-based environments – from initial innovation projects to mission-critical scenarios. All data remains in Austria and therefore within European jurisdiction, helping organizations protect themselves from geopolitical risks, arbitrary price changes by international hyperscalers, and the risk of external shutdowns.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260525934244/en/
The stack is designed to move AI initiatives beyond the pilot phase and scale them sustainably. Companies can start small – with individual racks, dedicated nodes, or edge appliances – and expand the infrastructure modularly up to complete sovereign zones as workloads grow. GPU- and accelerator-based computer resources, high-performance storage, and high-speed clusters are optimized for demanding GenAI and agentic AI workloads, enabling automation of knowledge work, end-to-end process orchestration, and secure operation of domain-specific AI assistants without compromising sovereignty and compliance.
At the heart of the solution lies a sovereign architecture aligned with EU digital and tech sovereignty. Clients benefit from flexible usage models: token-based access to large language models running in the sovereign environment, including leading local and open-weight models such as Llama, Gemma, and Mistral, as well as customized, domain-specific models. Security follows a zero-trust approach with encryption at rest and in transit, hardware hardening, segmented network architectures, and strong identity and access mechanisms; for particularly critical scenarios, the stack supports “air-gapped” or highly isolated deployments.
Governance & Compliance by Design is a core principle of the stack. The architecture supports compliance with key European regulations such as the EU AI Act, GDPR, and sector-specific rules; deployments can be prepared to meet NIS2 and DORA requirements. The stack integrates seamlessly with GenAIQ, BearingPoint’s platform for orchestrating and automating generative and agentic AI applications, and connects to existing enterprise IT landscapes – including networks, identity and access management, data lakes, ERP and CRM systems, and existing security and monitoring solutions. Target customers include public administration, defense and homeland security, financial services, healthcare and life sciences, and critical infrastructure operators.
“Demand for sovereign AI infrastructure in Europe is growing rapidly,” says Matthias Roeser, Partner and Global Leader Technology at BearingPoint. “With our fully proprietary Sovereign Infrastructure Stack and our own data center in Graz, we offer clients a platform on which they can run state-of-the-art AI applications in an environment that consistently respects European values, regulations, and security requirements,” adds Philipp Sturm, Head of IT Infrastructure Services at BearingPoint/Graz.
“We support our clients from AI strategy through the design and implementation of the infrastructure to the development and operation of concrete use cases with GenAIQ,” says Tomas Chroust, Head of CoE Modern Data Platforms at BearingPoint. “The new sovereign infrastructure – combined with local large language models and flexible access models – provides the foundation for securely scaling AI initiatives and embedding them in the core business.”
Learn more about AI Cloud: https://genaiq.bearingpoint.com/en/sovereign-infrastructure/
About BearingPoint
BearingPoint is an independent management and technology consultancy with European roots and a global reach. We help businesses transform by combining deep industry expertise with strong capabilities in strategy, operations, and technology. Dedicated SAP and Microsoft transformation units, a strong focus on AI, and outcome-based products enable us to provide tailored, innovative solutions that create measurable and sustainable value.
In addition to our core consulting operations, we run two joint ventures. Arcwide, our joint venture with IFS, specializes in business transformation enabled by IFS technology. BearingPoint North America, our joint venture with ABeam Consulting, focuses on consulting excellence and business transformation built on SAP.
BearingPoint works with many of the world’s leading companies and public-sector organizations. Together with its strategic alliance partner ABeam Consulting, the firm brings together more than 15,000 professionals and serves clients in over 70 countries, delivering seamless business transformation, strengthening performance, and driving sustainable impact.
BearingPoint is recognized among TIME World’s Best Companies and Forbes World’s Best Employers. The firm is also a certified B Corporation, committed to responsible business and creating long-term value for organizations, people, and society.
For more information, please visit:
Homepage: www.bearingpoint.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/bearingpoint
With its own data center in Graz, the BearingPoint Fully-Owned Sovereign Infrastructure Stack enables companies and public institutions to run sensitive AI workloads in fully controlled, EU-based environments – from initial innovation projects to mission-critical scenarios.
