Selection of 2,580 Data Voucher Demand Companies... 123 Billion Won Invested This Year

[Asia Economy Reporter Eunmo Koo] The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 24th the final selection results of demand companies for the 120 billion KRW-scale ‘2021 Data Voucher Support Project,’ which supports data necessary for the development of innovative products and services in the form of vouchers.

The Data Voucher Project is a program that supports companies requiring data utilization businesses and product/service development by providing purchase and processing services in the form of vouchers. This year, with a budget of 123 billion KRW, a total of 2,580 companies and institutions (1,200 purchases, 480 general processing, 900 AI processing) will be supported.

Data vouchers contribute to expanding the base of data utilization in areas closely related to citizens’ daily lives and various industrial sectors, creating visible effects such as increased production and new market creation through data utilization.

This year, projects with high public benefits were selected and supported, such as the ‘AI Child Protection Alert Speed Display Traffic Light,’ which recognizes children in blind spots within school zones and provides warning alerts, and the ‘Infant Health Traffic Light Chatbot Service,’ which enables early and rapid diagnosis of infant diseases remotely.

Additionally, plans are underway to implement data-based innovative and new service creation projects, including services that visualize electric vehicle charging information and camping-related information on a map in real time, digital model houses using Mixed Reality (MR), and AI-based personalized fashion recommendations.

The call for demand companies for this year’s data voucher, divided into general and social issue sectors, received a total of 6,179 applications (2,207 purchases, 1,295 general processing, 2,677 AI processing), showing a competition rate of 2.4 to 1.

As a result of the demand company selection, the number of applications from non-ICT companies has been increasing annually, with five industrial sectors?manufacturing (22.4%), distribution (11.4%), culture (8.7%), telecommunications (8.6%), and education (3.9%)?accounting for 55% of the total selected cases.

By region, last year out of a total of 2,040 cases, 1,472 (72.2%) were from the metropolitan area and 568 (27.8%) from non-metropolitan areas. This year, out of 2,580 cases, 1,724 (66.8%) were from the metropolitan area and 856 (33.2%) from non-metropolitan areas, showing an increase in the selection ratio of non-metropolitan areas compared to last year.

Song Kyung-hee, Director of AI-based Policy at the Ministry of Science and ICT, stated, “The Data Voucher Project is highly satisfactory to participating companies as it provides customized data and processing services to data-utilizing companies and offers opportunities for data sales and processing companies to provide data products and services. It is evaluated as driving the growth of the data industry.”

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