ETRI Lays Foundation for International Standards to Enable Real-Virtual Converged Intelligent Cities

The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) has laid the groundwork for establishing international standards in the fields of the metaverse and smart cities.

On October 14, ETRI announced that it had received preliminary approval for seven recommendations, including three related to metaverse-digital twin interoperability and several others in the areas of AIoT and smart cities, at the International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) Study Group 20 plenary session recently held in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Korean national delegation is holding a meeting for on-site response during the ITU-T SG20 conference. Provided by Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute of Korea.

The recommendations concerning metaverse and digital twin interoperability include: ▲Requirements (Y.dtmv-reqts), ▲Reference Architecture (Y.dtmv-ref), and ▲Interface (Y.dtmv-if). These are the first metaverse-related recommendations to be established by ITU-T and in the field of international standardization.

These recommendations are significant in that they define the functions and interfaces necessary for interoperability between the real and virtual worlds, thereby establishing an international foundation for the implementation of future converged services.

In particular, ETRI's achievement is noteworthy as it marks the first international standard within ITU-T to address both the metaverse and digital twins simultaneously.

As a result, there are expectations that, as countries worldwide build smart cities, real-virtual convergence services will become more widespread, and the standards proposed by ETRI will serve as benchmarks for global digital city policies and technology development.

At the meeting, ETRI also received preliminary approval for its recommendation on the intelligent Internet of Things (AIoT) convergence framework. This recommendation defines a structure for integrating core ICT technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and data with the Internet of Things, providing a foundation for the efficient analysis and management of vast amounts of data.

Kim Hyungjun, Ph.D. at ETRI, stated, "Technologies that enable real-virtual interoperability, such as Cityverse, are central to the future urban ecosystem. This achievement will serve as a foundation for Korea to become a global hub for the standardization of digital city technologies."

Meanwhile, ITU-T Study Group 20 is a working group responsible for international standards related to the Internet of Things (IoT), smart city applications, and services. Kim Hyungjun, Principal Researcher at ETRI, currently serves as both the international chair of ITU-T SG20 and the chief representative of the Korean delegation.

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