Lee Soo-man Returns After 3 Years With 24 Idols and a New Camera Tech

Lee Soo-man debuted two groups on the same day, the 15-member boy group A2O SOUL and the 9-member girl group A2O LITE, at a showcase on October 12 at KINTEX in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province. It is the first Korean-market release from the SM Entertainment founder, now 74, since his non-compete agreement with HYBE expired in February.

The event, titled WELCOME TO SOULITE and assisted by CJ ENM, put the agency's name on the table: A2O Entertainment, where Lee serves as Key Producer. He walked out onto a spaceship-like set and introduced the company and both groups to reporters himself. The name A2O stands for "Alpha to Omega," which he described as an end that loops back into a new beginning.

"Everything from the song to the dance, the music video and the performance should feel different from what came before," he said. "Today, I will open the door to the newly starting A2O."

Why he was away for three years

Lee sold his SM shares to HYBE in February 2023 and agreed not to produce records in Korea for three years. In that window he founded A2O and worked mainly overseas, in the United States and China, launching the girl group A2O MAY, which has been active mostly in Chinese-speaking markets. The non-compete lapsed this February, and the October 12 showcase is the first domestic result.

The camera is the pitch

Much of his speech went to technology rather than music. The centerpiece was 4D Gaussian Splatting (4DGS), paired with what the company calls the INFINITE filming system. Many cameras capture a performance from multiple angles at once, and the data is combined to rebuild the artist's look and movement inside a three-dimensional space. Fans can then view that space from any angle or position they choose, even after shooting has ended.

"Until now, when we filmed video, we only recorded what the camera was looking at," Lee said. By contrast, 4DGS records the time and space the artist occupied as data, which he framed as the move "from a camera that films to a camera that creates."

He traced the idea to the MATRIX camera system used in music videos for BoA, TVXQ, SHINee and Girls' Generation in the late 2000s. That setup used roughly 100 to 120 still cameras to freeze a subject while the viewpoint rotated. Lee said he wondered then what would happen if the effect could be done with video cameras, and that 16 years later 4DGS is the answer. The music videos for both new groups were shot this way, and an extended reality (XR) experience developed with Samsung Electronics goes a step beyond 2D viewing.

"Wisdom" as the stated theme

Lee also argued that recorded human movement will become data for future people and for AI-equipped robots to learn from. In that future, he said, how wisely technology is used will matter as much as how advanced it is, and the industry should ask what to record and what to leave behind. The same coverage noted that, in his words, the most important starting point is still music.

The showcase also leaned on an 80s synthwave and beat sound, developed with Yoo Young-jin, a longtime SM-era collaborator.

What to watch

Debuting 24 members across two groups in one night is a heavy opening bet, and the ceiling here depends on whether the 4DGS and XR content draws fans beyond the curious. Debut math says the first measurable test will be music video views and first-week album sales. My read: expect the technology to get the early attention and the songs to decide how long it lasts.