Pohang City Accelerates Leap to Become a 'Big Data Industry Leading City'

Public-Private Partnership Innovation Ecosystem Established: 'Pohang-style Big Data Project' Progressing Smoothly

'Big Data AI Innovation Center' Launched to Foster Data Experts and Companies

Pohang City Hall.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Dongguk Lee] Pohang City, Gyeongbuk Province, is accelerating industrial development to leap forward as a ‘data-leading city’ driving the 4th Industrial Revolution, amid the rapid growth of the data industry market due to the full-scale advancement of the data economy.

The domestic data business market size is expected to grow rapidly from 19.3736 trillion KRW in 2020 to over 43 trillion KRW by 2025, with related workforce demand projected to increase by more than 20,000 people within the next five years, indicating a serious shortage of personnel and a highly evaluated growth trend.

The city is promoting the ‘Pohang-type Big Data Project’ centered on four major strategies and 15 tasks, including the creation of a data innovation ecosystem, to lead the data industry.

To this end, Pohang is smoothly advancing ▲the establishment of a data innovation ecosystem strategy for creating a public data administrative foundation and fostering industry ▲the construction of Pohang City’s big data integrated platform and Big Data AI Innovation Center ▲policy support through various big data analyses to enhance administrative reliability ▲and the cultivation of data personnel and fostering of specialized companies to create a sustainable data ecosystem.

Mayor Kang-deok Lee of Pohang said, “Through the ‘Pohang-type Big Data Project,’ we will create a data innovation ecosystem and aim for a major transformation to scientific administration utilizing this ecosystem,” adding, “We expect not only to provide high-quality services to citizens but also for Pohang to emerge as a ‘big data leading city.’”

In this regard, to promote big data based on public-private cooperation, the ‘Pohang City Big Data Promotion Council’ was launched last September with the participation of 66 local institutions and companies.

Currently, related organizations and private companies in six sectors of Pohang City jointly produce and utilize high-quality, highly usable data to innovate across all fields of administration, economy, and society, establish a governance cooperation system, create a data industry innovation ecosystem, and unite efforts to revitalize the local economy and create new jobs.

The city is also utilizing big data to analyze the local economy and support revitalization policies. By analyzing three years of big data from the successfully established Pohang Love Gift Certificates, it announced that the economic inducement effect reached 1 trillion KRW. Through this, it secured grounds for further activation by establishing customized local currency strategies based on scientific and multifaceted analyses such as consumer characteristics and consumption pattern analysis.

Furthermore, the city plans to promote big data analyses on job issue data, local commercial sales, and changes in consumption trends.

By collecting and analyzing data on local industries and job environments, the city supports policies and services, analyzes local commercial districts to understand the current state of the local economy, identifies causes of consumption leakage outside the region, and prepares countermeasures to revitalize the local economy. Through this, it aims to break away from subjective and intuitive administration and achieve a major transformation to reliable scientific administration using big data.

To cultivate big data talent and foster companies, in March, Pohang signed the ‘Pohang Big Data AI Innovation Center Agreement’ with POSTECH, the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, and Pohang TP to strengthen local data capabilities and promote industry. They agreed to mutually cooperate in expanding the base by nurturing big data professionals, supporting job linkage projects, fostering big data specialized companies, and promoting startup commercialization.

In June, the city laid the groundwork for further growth of the data industry by winning the ‘Public Data Enterprise Matching Support Contest’ hosted by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety. The city was selected under the theme ‘Opening Pohang City Barrier-Free Travel Data for Tourism Activation Open to Everyone,’ which involves public institutions and companies collaborating to build public data and open it for anyone to use.

By employing local youth interns for this project, the city not only provides youth jobs but also supports them in gaining data-related experience, expecting to achieve both the project’s goal of securing public data and the effect of creating youth employment simultaneously.

Alongside this, the city is promoting the construction of a ‘Digital Integrated Situation Room’ that allows real-time monitoring of city administration status from the mayor’s office and provides data sharing to public officials by utilizing a public-private cooperation-based big data integrated platform.

The Digital Integrated Situation Room integrates data that was previously scattered individually and enables a comprehensive view of all administrative data of Pohang City.

It is expected to play a significant role in supporting proactive decision-making based on data and in the rapid response by real-time analysis and visualization of urban conditions closely related to citizen safety, such as disasters and the environment.