KT, South Korea’s top telecom carrier, is seeking to play a leading role in technological convergence across industries in the upcoming fourth industrial revolution era. 

The so-called Industry 4.0 describes a new industrial paradigm of smart manufacturing process based on new technologies such as Internet of Things, cloud, big data, analytics, robotics and augmented reality.

KT, which started out as a state telegram agency in 1885, aims higher to transform not just the manufacturing sector but also all industries and our daily lives through technological convergence.

“Through the intelligent infrastructure, KT will make efforts to make South Korea the leader in the fourth industrial revolution,” said KT chairman Hwang Chang-gyu.

“The fourth industrial revolution will bring vitality to the local economy.”

Intelligent infra

Celebrating the company’s 130th anniversary in September, KT unveiled the road map, including plans to invest 13 trillion won ($10 billion) to find new profit sources and tap deeper into the intelligent industry by 2020.

And the key to the new vision is the Intelligent GiGA Infra, which connects the latest technologies, including cloud computing and big data, on its high-speed, advanced network infrastructures.

In preparations for the next 5G era, the KT chief declared the company would make its wired and wireless networks GiGA-class through an investment of 4.5 trillion won in the coming years.

When it comes to speed of the latest LTE service, the company has realized 1 Gigabytes per second (Gbps) this year. It aims to further increase the speed to 2 Gbps in 2016, 4 Gbps in 2017 and 20 Gbps in 2018.

The company has ramped up efforts to roll out various ICT-based services, adding such businesses will result in annual sales of 5 trillion won by 2020.

Hwang also stressed the future network infra should offer new values other than speed, capacity and connectivity ― intelligence, citing the company’s new services such as Wiz Stick, GiGA Office and Private LTE.

The Wiz Stick is the world’s first portable security platform that is designed to connect to computers to prevent access to malicious websites and block hacking attempts.

The platform, which is set to be launched later this year, also boasts improved security as it supports finger-print identification and single sign-on capabilities.

The GiGA Office is an integrated smart office management system that is now adopted by more than 500 companies.

The Private LTE is a mobile intranet that can be customized for specific demands of different companies. Employees can use on both business and private modes for better security and privacy.

The company said it plans to post 1 trillion won in security solutions sales in 2020 and tap the overseas security market, which is estimated at about 285 trillion won.

Technological convergence

KT is also expanding technological convergence services across industries as its next growth engine business.

The KT-MEG (Micro Energy Grid) is the world’s first integrated energy management system, based on a control center in Mapo, Seoul, which controls energy use of some 280 websites around the world.

A local hospital, ChungAng Hospital in Mokpo, has reduced 73 percent of its energy use over the past two months through the system.

The company said if its smart energy management solutions are used for 10 percent of the nation’s energy needs nationwide, it could have the same impact as five nuclear power plants, worth about 67 trillion won.

The company plans to supply the solutions to hotels and manufacturing plants to post 1.6 trillion won in sales by 2020.

KT is also a pioneer in Internet of Things technology as it has led the global standardization and created an open platform among stakeholders.

KT proposed standardizing IoT data during last year’s Mobile Asia Expo and has joined hands with global tech companies such as Samsung Electronics, Nokia and China Mobile to create an ecosystem for local venture firms to tap into the global market.

The IoT Makers, an open platform KT launched last month, has attracted more than 200 start-ups. The platform works paired with Samsung’s ARTIK platform and plans to test the LTE-M, an IoT-based network technology in November.

KT is also seeking a bigger role in driverless cars ― a hot issue both in automotive and tech industries.

The company said the GiGA infra is crucial for driverless cars as they should process 1 gigabit per second to sync with real-time traffic information. The company is working with local carmakers on related 5G network-based technologies.

The nation’s No. 1 IPTV operator is introducing new media content based on its advance network service. Following the launch of the world’s first set-top UHD TV, the company plans to unveil a next-generation media set-top box using Samsung’s mobile chipset.

The new set-top box has been reduced to one-quarter the size while its capacity has doubled. Its energy consumption has also been reduced 70 percent. The portable set-top box allows users to enjoy more innovative services such as augmented reality.

The health care sector is also getting a boost with technological convergence. Computing power and big data is reducing the time and cost for related services.

KT plans to launch its own dielectric analysis solution for child diseases this year ― the first of its kind in Korea. The solution predicts the risks of 55 diseases, helping in earlier detection and treatment.

KT’s big-data analysis is used in diverse sectors. The company traced the transmission route of avian influenza with an accuracy rate of 91.2 percent, while its big-data technology is also used to detect abnormal transactions at financial institutions.

The company aims to achieve 5 trillion won in such ICT integrated services by 2020.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)