Korea's digital industry expands 9.3 % in 2024: report

Visitors attend World IT Show 2026 at COEX in Seoul, April 22. Korea Times photo by Park Ji-yeon

Korea's digital industry expanded 9.3 percent in 2024 from a year earlier, amid growing global investments in artificial intelligence (AI), government data showed Wednesday.

Sales of the country's digital industry came to 1,378 trillion won ($917.96 billion) in 2024, accounting for 15.2 percent of the country's total industrial output for the year, according to the data from the Ministry of Science and ICT.

The ministry noted that the tally represented more than half of that of the conventional manufacturing sector, which posted sales of 2,598 trillion won in the same year.

The rise was attributed to increased global investments in AI and growing ICT exports, including those from semiconductors, the ministry explained.

Korea's digital maturity, which gauges the level of digital technology adoption and innovation at organizations, was 75.4 percent in 2024, up 10.8 percentage points from a year earlier.

From 2022 to 2024, the data showed 52 percent of digital companies adopted cloud computing technology, while 43.5 percent harnessed AI technologies, and 29.1 percent adopted big data.

"The government will implement relevant policy measures in line with these changes to ensure that no member of our society is left behind, as we expect such a trend to accelerate with the AI transition," the science ministry said.