4차산업혁명위원회 헬스케어 및 로봇시장을 혁신성장 분야로 지정
South Korea's presidential committee on the fourth industrial revolution has identified two key areas where the country can harness the 4th industrial revolution to grow its economy.
Those are healthcare and the robotics industry.
Big data and artificial intelligence can improve medical treatment, and robotics can be used in a range of industries... and in daily life.
Our Seo Eunkyung has the details.
Healthcare and robotics will be two main growth drivers of the Korean economy.
This is according to a presidential committee founded to find economic growth opportunities in preparation for the fourth industrial revolution.
The committee said that Korea would lead the healthcare industry by utilizing fourth industrial revolution technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence.
The global healthcare AI market will see annual growth of 52-point-7 percent from 2016 to 2022 according to market research company Frost & Sullivan.
With the vision of creating a society where everyone is healthy, the committee has set up the goals of extending the healthy life span from 73 years old in 2015 to 76 years old in 2022, and increasing the number of jobs in the health care sector from 130-thousand in 2016 to 180-thousand in 2022.
In addition, the committee plans to make a standardized big data management system for the health industry.
To do so, it will recruit 300 ordinary citizens and cancer survivors, and conduct an analysis on the genetic and medical history of the participants.
The findings will be utilized to generate advanced knowledge of collecting and making use of patients' data.
Artificial Intelligence will be used to help develop new drugs more economically and in a shorter period of time
The presidential committee also sees the robotics industry as a potential growth engine.
Although Korea's robot technology is fourth in the world following Japan, the U.S and Europe, Korean companies haven't fully commercialized the technology.
The committee will come up with ways to support robotics in a range of fields from medicine and logistics to national defense.
So that robots can be used in people's daily lives, they will be provided to the elderly and disabled first. By end of this year, 1,000 robots will be provided to help them with their mobility and be a companion to talk to.
The presidential committee on the fourth industrial revolution was founded last year, and on Monday had its first official meeting after a reshuffle of members.
Seo Eun-kyung, Arirang News
