Hong Nam-ki Visits Gangwon-do Sites Including Underground 700m Dark Matter Research Lab

A Total of 115 On-Site Visits (Average 35.5 per Year) Since Inauguration on December 10, 2018

Hong Nam-ki, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance, visited the Duzon Bizon Gangchon Campus located in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province on the 4th, inspecting the Internet Data Center (IDC) and receiving explanations from officials.

[Asia Economy Sejong=Reporter Kim Hyewon] Hong Nam-ki, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance, visited data industry and basic science research sites located in Gangwon Province on the 4th.

According to the Ministry of Economy and Finance on that day, Deputy Prime Minister Hong visited Duzon Bizon Gangchon Campus in Chuncheon City, Gangwon Province, and the underground experimental research team Yangyang Lab (Y2L) of the Institute for Basic Science in Yangyang County, Gangwon Province, to examine the research status and facilities.

Duzon Bizon is a company that provides enterprise software (SW) such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), cloud, and tax accounting packages. After touring the facilities, Deputy Prime Minister Hong stated, "We will actively promote a non-recourse factoring project for small and medium-sized enterprises' accounts receivable worth a total of 137.5 billion KRW in cooperation with private companies and financial institutions, including Duzon Bizon."

He also conveyed that policy tasks to strengthen companies' digital competitiveness, such as the enforcement of the Data Industry Act, expansion of big data platform construction, and reorganization of non-face-to-face service vouchers, will be carried out without any setbacks.

Deputy Prime Minister Hong visited the IBS Yangyang Lab, a next-generation basic science research facility located in Yangyang-gun, Gangwon-do, on the 4th, inspecting the underground research facility and receiving explanations from officials.

Following this, Deputy Prime Minister Hong visited the underground experimental research team Y2L of the Institute for Basic Science and encouraged the researchers who are striving to unravel the secrets of dark matter, known as one of the most difficult challenges nature has given to humanity, in a narrow and harsh laboratory located 700 meters underground in the Seoraksan mountain range. The matter known to humanity accounts for less than 5% of the universe, while dark matter (23%) and dark energy (72%) remain areas unknown to humanity.

Since 2013, the research team has been exploring the origin, history, and structure of the universe through laboratories such as Y2L, and it is a cradle of national basic science research that has produced achievements, including publishing research results in Nature in December 2018.

Deputy Prime Minister Hong emphasized, "Recently, space and aerospace technologies have been selected as one of the top ten essential national strategic technologies, and we will concentrate all national capabilities to secure technological leadership at the level of leading countries within the next ten years. We will spare no policy support for creating a creative and challenging scientific research environment and infrastructure and nurturing excellent talent."

Since his inauguration on December 10, 2018, Deputy Prime Minister Hong has visited the field a total of 115 times (an average of 35.5 times per year) up to this day.

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