South Korea's ICT ministry said Sunday it plans to spend 129.8 billion won ($108.2 million) on ramping up data projects this year, including distributing "data vouchers" to support small and medium-sized businesses.

The latest investment comes as part of efforts to utilize data collected from the so-called Data Dam project, an initiative that kicked off in 2020 to gather data generated through public and private networks to maximize data utilization.

The ministry said it will allocate 124.1 billion won to the data voucher project this year to help SMEs and small businesses cover costs in developing new data products or services.

Around 5 billion won will be earmarked for another project to develop data and artificial intelligence-based products, the ministry said.

South Korea unveiled the digital New Deal in 2020 with the aim of investing around 58 trillion won in key digital technologies, such as network infrastructure and artificial intelligence, to lay the foundations for a digital economy. (Yonhap)