KT "Leading the Digital New Deal with Cloud"

[Asia Economy Reporter Koo Chae-eun] KT has announced a 'Cloud-Based Digital Innovation Strategy' to actively support the Korean-style Digital New Deal. KT plans to ▲promote digital innovation using IDC, ▲revitalize the data industry in the financial and medical sectors, and ▲actively enter the public cloud market.

On the 23rd, KT announced plans to directly build and operate public cloud services using Internet Data Centers (IDC). KT owns 13 IDCs nationwide, including Yongsan, which is scheduled for completion in October. It also operates six Cloud Data Centers (CDC) and two edge clouds in Hyehwa, Seoul, and Busan.

KT also plans to promote cloud-based 'digital innovation' using IDC. On the 6th, KT established the 'Digital New Deal Cooperation TF' and presented a vision to bring innovation by combining artificial intelligence (AI), cloud, and big data with KT's network infrastructure. In September, KT plans to launch the 'KT AI/DX Platform (tentative name)' to quickly provide AI, big data, and other services based on the cloud.

KT will also actively promote the revitalization of the data industry in the financial and medical sectors. Although the use of sensitive information was restricted, the era of the data economy is approaching with the enforcement of the three data laws (Personal Information Protection Act, Information and Communications Network Act, Credit Information Act), increasing the utilization of financial and medical data. In fact, KT won the financial platform construction project for Hana Bank in May last year and passed all 141 financial cloud guidelines for the first time in Korea. Based on the verified KT financial cloud infrastructure, KT plans to provide differentiated services that combine big data and AI for integrated customer data storage, analysis, customer services, and internal credit evaluation.

KT is also actively entering the public institution cloud market. It is known to have started consultations with related organizations to win projects such as the Korea Local Information Development Institute (KLID)'s next-generation local finance system and the Gwangju AI Data Center. Approximately 700 billion KRW will be invested by 2023 to promote the build-type cloud business. The network separation as a service project is also worth about 400 billion KRW. KT's goal is to more than double its cloud sector sales, currently at about 100 billion KRW, every year.

Yoon Dong-sik, Executive Vice President and Head of KT Cloud & DX Business Division, said, "The role and importance of cloud will continue to grow to realize KT's vision of leading innovation in other industries," adding, "We will accelerate the activation of the cloud ecosystem and cloud-based digital innovation to play a key role in the 'Digital New Deal.'"

Meanwhile, KT started cloud services in 2011. It built Korea's first cloud-dedicated data center in Cheonan, Chungnam, and provided cloud services to corporate customers. Since then, KT has expanded its target to public institutions and launched ▲G-Cloud (2015), ▲Hybrid Cloud (2017), ▲Financial Cloud Dedicated Zone (2019), and ▲the world's first 5G-based edge cloud (2019).