ED Toward AI powerhouse
2020 will be make-or-break year for Korea Inc.
The year 2020 has dawned. Many people call it a year of great transition. It is a turning point that will make or break the Republic of Korea. The keyword that determines national destiny is artificial intelligence. The past decade was the period that built the foundation for AI.
Governments, scientists and industrialists declared the “era of AI” began, and brought about a quantum leap in related technologies. Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, once said the computer intensity as the measure of operation execution speed doubles every two years. AI's development speed had been similar to what Moore said until 2012 but has since attained the same increase every three or four months, seven times faster than Moore's Law.
Major advanced countries have long adopted AI in their core national agendas and rolled up their sleeves to take the lead. The U.S. government has launched the “AI initiative,” and announced a strategy that places top priority on AI research and development. China also unveiled its plans for next-generation AI, aiming to become a global powerhouse in theory, technology and application by 2030.
What is the situation in Korea? In 2016, Google AlphaGo stunned Koreans by crushing the nation's most famous go player, Lee Sedol. It was a shocking incident indeed, demonstrating AI's prowess over humans. Many here hoped AI would open a new age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Still, the sector's growth here has failed to gain speed, unlike in the U.S. and China. The technology gap with AI frontrunners has kept widening, as the nation dragged its feet in working out a detailed roadmap.
It came as a relief in this regard that the government set a national AI strategy recently at the behest of President Moon Jae-in. The long-term plan aims to make Korea No. 3 in the world in digital competitiveness and push up Koreans' standard of living to 10th place through creating AI-based economic benefits worth 455 trillion won ($389 billion) by 2030. At stake is how to put the plan into action with speed. Koreans need to remember they made this country a global IT powerhouse almost from scratch. They can ― and should ― also repeat the feat in the AI sector.