The government will actively respond to global technological hegemony by actively promoting the standardization of 12 digital innovation technologies, including artificial intelligence, data, 6G, and next-generation security.

The Ministry of Science and ICT (Minister Lee Jong-ho) announced on the 10th that it has established a 'Digital Technology Standardization Strategy' that contains a comprehensive promotion direction to secure future technological leadership by linking government policies, R&D, industry, and services centered on standards.

As standards domination has emerged as a key battleground in the recent technological hegemony competition between countries, major countries are using standards as a strategic resource to enhance international competitiveness by establishing national standards policies and strengthening support for standardization.

Korea is also actively participating in establishing a digital economic order in the international community by strengthening cooperation with allies and friendly countries, including international standardization, through consultative bodies such as the Korea-US Next Generation Core and Emerging Technology Dialogue (established in April 2023), and announcing the Digital Bill of Rights (September 2023), a universal digital order norm for the digital era.

Accordingly, this year's standardization strategy presented a strategy for promoting standard research and development in key technology fields and international standardization of secured technologies so that our country can play a central role in international standardization cooperation.

The key technology fields are mobile communications (6G), artificial intelligence (AI), quantum information communication, etc., which are important for securing standards from an economic and security perspective, and which Korea can lead in, and which were selected based on an analysis of the current status of domestic and international ICT standards, including linkage with the national technology development policy, standard activity, and expert evaluation. There are 12 technology fields, including next-generation security.

Each core technology field was categorized into digital innovation technology and digital-based technology according to the purpose of promotion and the standardization level of our country, and customized strategies were established.

Specifically, in order to promote the standardization of digital innovation technologies, a standard structure model was introduced to select 75 standardization target technologies that require preemptive response, and a roadmap was established to present the direction of standard research and development for the government and private sector by classifying them into △R&D promotion △R&D-standard R&D simultaneous promotion △standard R&D promotion technologies according to technological maturity.

In the digital-based technology, 81 key standardization items were selected to secure international standards for technologies acquired through R&D through SWOT analysis of the market, technology, and standards, and a strategy map was established to present international standardization strategies by classifying them into △next-generation strategy △leading competition strategy △pursuit/cooperation strategy △continuity/expansion strategy △strategic acceptance according to the international standardization progress stage.

In addition, we analyzed domestic and international service standards utilizing 12 core technologies to derive 12 digital convergence service fields, and additionally developed a utilization map that suggests ways to utilize digital convergence service standards.

The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Telecommunications Technology Association (Chairman Seung-Hyun Son, TTA) established a technology standardization subcommittee with 189 industry, academia, and research standardization and technology development experts in 12 key technology fields in March and established a standardization strategy through a total of 92 meetings.

The standardization strategy will strengthen the link between technology development and standardization by providing basic data for planning ICT standards development and R&D projects for the next year, and will also be used to build a virtuous cycle system through standardization full cycle tracking management from 'standardization planning - reflection of technology development and standard development projects - verification of standard performance.'It's a stroke.

The Ministry of Science and ICT’s Information and Communication Industry Policy Officer Jeon Young-soo said, “Standards are a strategic means of dominating the global market and a key factor in determining the success or failure of commercializing the results of technology development.” He added, “In the rapidly changing competition to dominate international standards, it is most important to design a detailed plan for discovering standardization targets that we must select and focus on, linking them with technology development, securing standard patents, and global cooperation measures, and to make strategic investments accordingly and take preemptive actions on the international standardization stage.”

This report will be released on the TTA website (www.tta.or.kr) from November 7.