New Industry 4.0 Technologies Introduced in Golmok Sikdang... IoT Usage Increased 13-Fold Over 5 Years

[Asia Economy Reporter Seulgina Jo] Domestic businesses utilizing new technologies representing the 4th Industrial Revolution, such as big data and artificial intelligence (AI), have surged in recent years. Even small neighborhood restaurants are accumulating order data through delivery applications, enabling them to analyze and respond to key menus, customer demographics, and purchase locations. For businesses with 10 or more employees, the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) has increased by an astonishing 13 times over the past five years.

According to the Ministry of Science and ICT on the 21st, this was confirmed through the results of the nationwide business informatization surveys, the '2019 Informatization Statistical Survey' and the 'Analysis of Informatization Statistical Surveys over the Past Five Years.' The Informatization Statistical Survey is a nationally approved statistic conducted annually on a sample of about 14,000 businesses out of approximately 4.02 million nationwide, to comprehensively understand the informatization status of businesses in Korea as of the end of the previous year.

The survey results showed that the use of new technologies such as IoT, cloud computing, big data, and AI significantly increased starting in 2017, following the establishment of policies like the Comprehensive Plan for the Intelligent Information Society and the 4th Industrial Revolution Response Plan. The IoT usage rate was 3.2% as of 2018. For businesses with 10 or more employees, it rose about 13 times from 1.1% in 2014 to 13.8% in 2018. For businesses with 250 or more employees, it reached 30.1%.

Cloud and big data usage rates were identified as 6.4% and 1.7%, respectively. For businesses with 10 or more employees, cloud usage increased from 12.9% in 2014 to 22.7% in 2018. During the same period, big data usage also more than doubled from 3.3% to 7.7%. The Ministry of Science and ICT expects big data usage to increase further following the institutional foundation established by the passage of the Data 3 Act on January 9 this year, which will activate the data economy.

AI usage remains low at 0.6%, still in the 0% range. However, among businesses with 10 or more employees, it increased about fourfold from 0.5% in 2016 to 2.1% in 2018 over the past three years. For businesses with 250 or more employees, usage rose from 1.9% in 2016 to 5.4% in 2017 and 13.9% in 2018. Given the various policies announced last year to establish and utilize the AI ecosystem, it is expected that the number of businesses using AI new technologies will continue to grow.

Additionally, with the increase in the use of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs, informatization operating environments based on mobile and business activities utilizing mobile platforms are also expected to accelerate.

Yoon-gyu Park, Director of Information and Communication Policy at the Ministry of Science and ICT, explained, “Looking at the trend of informatization usage levels over the past five years, even ‘small businesses (with fewer than 5 employees),’ which had the lowest informatization levels, have improved to average levels in most survey items, indicating a meaningful analysis result that informatization is deeply permeating the entire Korean industry.”

He added, “Starting this year, the Informatization Statistical Survey will be significantly improved to measure Korea’s status as an ICT powerhouse properly by adopting survey methods considering the standards of international organizations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This will enable the Informatization Statistical Survey to establish itself as the foundational infrastructure for national informatization policies that can leap beyond an IT powerhouse to an AI powerhouse.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.