From Singapore to Seoul: Supporting S Korea's digital drive

NO OTHER country has embraced digitalisation more than South Korea. It has topped the Bloomberg Innovation Index for seven of the last nine years. Digitalisation continues to sweep across all facets of the South Korean economy at a rapid pace. Digital native businesses like e-commerce platforms, media and gaming companies are leading the way, with more traditional industries following closely. As demand for digital services soars from businesses and consumers alike, so does the need for data storage and processing. The country's public cloud market is expected to double in size from USD1.5 billion in 2018 to USD3.1 billion in 2023 - helping to generate USD45 billion in national GDP and some 50,000 jobs.

Key to the country's digital drive are governmental policies. South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT has plans to build a leading digital economy based on data innovation. One noteworthy initiative is the Digital New Deal, launched in 2020 to accelerate the transition to a digital economy by digitalising national infrastructure, and fostering the data, network and artificial intelligence (DNA) ecosystem. Such policies have created noteworthy opportunities for Singapore technology companies with the ambition to expand overseas.

"Data innovation in South Korea has been a driving force behind the nation's digital growth agenda," enthuses Jonathan King, Group Chief Operating & Strategy Officer at ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC). "The country leads the world in ICT adoption and 5G network roll-out, and tops Asian countries with an internet penetration rate of 96 per cent as of January 2020, while its number of mobile connections was equivalent to 118 per cent of its population."