'Public cloud will raise Korea's GDP by $45 bil., create 15,000 jobs'

Lee Ji-young, head of Google Cloud Korea, speaks during a press conference at COEX in southern Seoul, Wednesday. / Courtesy of Google Cloud Korea

By Baek Byung-yeul

Google is bolstering its efforts to improve its market share in Korean cloud computing as the U.S. tech giant has been increasing its investments here, with its Seoul data center region to be established in early 2020, Lee Ji-young, head of Google Cloud Korea, said Wednesday.

The company hosted its annual Google Cloud Summit conference in Seoul to share the latest trends in cloud computing and introduce updates for its cloud service.

Declaring that the company has secured major conglomerates here such as Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, SK Telecom and Korean Air as customers, Lee said Google expects more companies will adopt its cloud service once its cloud region ― a set of data centers ― will open in Seoul next year.

“Korea is one of the most important markets for us. We will open our cloud region in early 2020. With the opening of the region, we expect there will be more opportunities for us to meet with more customers,” Lee told reporters.

Speaking of the strength of its cloud service, Lee said Google has built the reliability of this technology as the tech giant has offered various data management services for more than a decade.

“Many customers regard Google Cloud as the most secure cloud service because we have operated mass-sized infrastructure to support a great diversity of users and the infrastructure and reliability we have earned remain in effect in our public cloud computing service,” she said.

The company also conducted market analysis with Boston Consulting Group to see how the public cloud computing service will affect in six Asia Pacific countries including Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore and Korea.

Ko Dong-hyun, a consultant at Boston Consulting Group, said the adoption of the cloud computing service is expected to contribute about $450 billion to GDP across the six countries between 2019 and 2023, of which $45 billion GDP growth is expected in Korea.

“By adopting a public cloud computing service, Korea is expected to produce 15,000 new jobs. Also, companies in the game industry and retail industry will actively try to use the cloud computing service as they can offer more specialized services to their consumers by using the data analysis tools of the cloud service,” Ko said.