한국전자통신연구원(ETRI)이 참여해 주도해 온 국제연합(UN) 산하 국제전기통신연합(ITU)의 메타버스 포커스그룹(Focus Group) 활동이 총 52건의 사전국제표준 승인이라는 성과를 내고 성공적으로 종료됐다.

▲ETRI Research Director Kang Shin-gak presiding over a meeting as FG-MV Chairman
Leading the development of 52 international standard documents, including 6 core metaverse standard documents
The Metaverse Focus Group activities of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a United Nations agency, led by the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), have successfully concluded with the approval of a total of 52 preliminary international standards.
ETRI announced that it has established a major bridgehead in the future metaverse market by approving 21 pre-standard documents (Deliverable) at the 7th Metaverse Focus Group (FG-MV) meeting held in Geneva, Switzerland for two days from the 12th of last month, chaired by ETRI's Dr. Kang Shin-gak.
As a result, ETRI has achieved final approval for a total of 52 pre-standard documents through its activities as the chair of the Metaverse Focus Group over the past year and six months.
This is an unprecedented achievement compared to other focus group activities.
ITU evaluated the achievement as even more remarkable considering the very short period of FG-MV activity.
ETRI has proactively developed six standard documents on △Metaverse overview, △Platform interoperability, and △Virtual-real world integration based on digital twins.
In addition, four standard documents, including △Metaverse Definition and Glossary, △Interoperability of Object Identification Information between Platforms, and △Trustworthy Metaverse, are being jointly developed with domestic and foreign organizations. It was announced that a total of 10 standard documents were developed, including development of a standard document.
This raises expectations about the significant impact that our country's technology will have on leading the future metaverse market and the role that our research team will play in the future.
In particular, it is expected to contribute greatly to the future growth of the metaverse industry as it has established the world's first platform and service interoperability foundation, which is of the greatest interest to the global metaverse industry and users.
In addition, based on the proposal of FG-MV, ITU held the first UN Virtual Worlds Day in Geneva on the 14th of last month with the participation of 18 UN agencies.
With the participation of over 350 people from major international organizations under the UN, the event was held successfully and decided to promote the realization of a sustainable future world based on the metaverse.
The Metaverse Focus Group (FG-MV) was initiated by Korea (ETRI) and was established unanimously by national representatives and industry member organizations at the ITU-T Telecommunications Advisory Group (TSAG) meeting in December 2022.
ETRI's Dr. Kang Shin-gak was nominated and elected solely as chairman.
In addition, considering the balance between major regions around the world, 11 experts from government, industry, academia, and international organizations were appointed as vice-chairmen.
A total of 9 working groups (WG) for each technical field and 20 task groups (TG) for each major sub-topic were formed and operated.
In this way, more than 500 experts participated in FG-MV and conducted preliminary standardization research activities on the metaverse.
FG-MV held a total of seven plenary meetings in Saudi Arabia, China, Mexico, and Switzerland, and developed about 60 standards through review of 1,156 contributions in a total of 155 expert meetings. Worked on developing standard documentation for the assignment.
In conjunction with FG-MV activities, the ITU Metaverse Forum was also held a total of five times to promote user and expert participation and standardization activities regarding the metaverse.
They have garnered much attention throughout their career by breaking records in various indicators, including setting a record of over 17,000 participants on an online broadcasting platform, and creating groundbreaking achievements.
ETRI President Seung-chan Bang said, “Metaverse is considered a future platform and service technology that will greatly advance the Internet we use today and bring about great transformation for users, industries, and society as a whole.”
ETRI stated that the ITU's research activities on the international standardization of the metaverse led by its research team are very significant in terms of expanding the influence of future technologies, and are also in line with one of the goals of the research institute's institutional operation plan, which is to 'become a world-class research institute and lead the world.'
In addition, it was revealed that Korea's influence on metaverse standardization has been greatly enhanced as the chair country has taken the lead in related international standardization activities.
Lee Byeong-jin, head of the Digital Content Division of the Ministry of Science and ICT, also explained, “The metaverse is one of the digital innovation technologies that the government is actively supporting, and the activities of this metaverse focus group are all the more meaningful as they broadly cover not only the technical aspects of the metaverse but also important safety, accessibility, inclusion, sustainability, and regulatory and competitive issues from a policy perspective.”
The results of FG-MV will be used as the basis for metaverse standard development activities that will be fully promoted by the main study group in the next study period (2025-2028) following the ITU-T World Standards Assembly (WTSA-2024) to be held in October.