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| Science and ICT Minister Lee Jong-ho gives a welcoming speech during the "Digital Bio Innovation Strategy" presentation held at Korea Bio Park in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, Wednesday. Courtesy of Ministry of Science and ICT |
By Kim Jae-heun
The government has unveiled a plan to speed up innovation in the biopharmaceutical industry by introducing advanced digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data, according to the Ministry of Science and ICT, Wednesday.
The strategy is mainly aimed at building Korea up as an advanced bio country by 2030, by developing new digital biotechnologies, securing digital bio generic technology, expanding data-based bio-research and creating an ecosystem to foster digital bio.
"Our plan is to increase the productivity of bio-research and related industries through convergence between the bio sector and digital technology, which Korea has competency in," Science and ICT Minister Lee Jong-ho said. "It aims to increase Korea's technological competitiveness and self-reliance against biotechnological innovation policies around the world, including a bio administrative order in the U.S. ― which holds a global technology hegemony ― and China's five-year bio-economy plan."
Recently, biotechnology has been emerging as a key to the technology hegemony competition in major countries such as the United States and China as it is related directly to the safety and prosperity of the country.
In September, the U.S. expressed its policy will to innovate existing manufacturing industries in the fields of energy, chemicals and materials with biotechnology. China also revealed its five-year plan in May to promote biotechnology-based economic development.
The paradigm of bio-research is also changing. Through the era of spontaneous theory represented by Aristotle, the era of microbial research pioneered by Pasteur and the era of molecular biology based on Watson and Crick's discovery of DNA's double-helix structure, the 21st century has entered the era of digital and bio-fusion, which uses artificial intelligence technology to analyze genome sequence big data and virtual models of a protein structure.
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