IBM Korea hosted ‘IBM Korea 2018 Top 5 News and 2019 Major Agenda Media Briefings’ at its office in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, on the morning of January 3.

The briefing session was organized by IBM Korea to announce the top five news in 2018 and the five major agendas in 2019, with the attendance of the President Hwa-jin Chang and CTO & Director Kyung-soon Um at IBM Korea.

“After declaring to reborn as a cloud platform company in 2017, we have been focusing on that part in 2018. In 2019, IBM Korea will concentrate on the hybrid cloud business and focus on artificial intelligence and cloud platform after 2018. We ask for continuing the interest and support you gave also in 2019.” Mr. Hwa-jin Chang, president of IBM Korea, said.

▲ IBM Korea's New Year Media Briefing was held.

▲ "IBM plans to focus on the hybrid cloud business in 2019 and focus on artificial intelligence and cloud platforms after 2018," said Hwa-jin Chang, president of IBM Korea.

IBM Korea's 2018 five major news were announced: 'AI', 'Cloud', 'Block Chain', 'System' and 'P-TECH'.

First, it was mentioned that 2018 was a year of expansion through the ‘AI’ and IBM has made various active attempts to apply it to real business beyond proof-of-concept. For example, Korean-based artificial intelligence chatbot were created with HyundaiCard, and artificial shopping advisor was produced with Lotte Department Store, by adopting artificial intelligence inside the process to help tasks more efficiently. In addition to the chatbot, IBM also has expanded the use of enterprise artificial intelligence from a customer-facing chatbot to a variety of industrial artificial intelligence areas.

In aspect of the ‘Cloud’, IBM has improved the security and stability of on-premises while simultaneously providing the speed and flexibility of a public cloud with the proliferation of ‘IBM Cloud Private Platforms’. The public cloud business of IBM Korea grew by 78 percent last year, and it was introduced that ‘private cloud’ will rise in this year. At the same time, IBM will provide the latest technologies, including Watson, blockchain, and Big Data Analysis, on all clouds, and will take leadership in several areas by acquiring Red Hat, a leader in open source technology portfolio.

Next, in the 'Blockchain', the number of projects of blockchain increased 2.6 times compared to 2017, and various proof-of-concept projects were conducted in Korea. IBM launched a network that commercializes logistics and food distribution blockchain, such as TradeLens and IBM Food Trust, to demonstrate the benefits of cost savings and faster speed by making transactions transparently based on blockchain and sharing information in real time. The case of Wal – Mart adopting IBM Food Trust to reduce distribution time of fruits from 6.6 days to 2.2 seconds was introduced. In addition, Everest Group's PEAK Matrix survey of blockchain services has revealed that capability and influence of IBM's blockchain business are excellent.

IBM Korea’s ‘System’, which was introduced to be used by 44 of the top 50 banks in the world, has been selected as an accounting system by KB Kookmin Bank based on security, performance, and stability. System Z of IBM Korea is programmable in Java and has been newly upgraded based on block chain technology, and its security is outstanding since all data is automatically encrypted when the application is running. Along with this, the entire lineup of Power 9 has been enhanced and completed, and the recently introduced Summit has become the fastest supercomputer in the world.

‘P-TECH’, a social contribution program, is a five-year public education system that fosters human resources related to advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, cyber security, and blockchain. ‘P-TECH’, which started as a social contribution in the United States, was the sixth in Korea after Australia, Morocco, Singapore and Taiwan, and is scheduled to open in March 2019 with Semyeong Computer High School and Gyeonggi College of Science and Technology. IBM Korea will create the Department of Artificial Intelligence Software, and plan to have one-on-one mentoring and IBM-paid internship program.

▲ In the 'Blockchain', IBM launched a network that commercializes logistics and food distribution blockchain.

▲ IBM's ‘System’ was introduced to be in use by 44 out of 50 top banks worldwide.

Next, IBM Korea announced that it will focus on five areas in 2019: ‘Hybrid Cloud’, ‘Security’, ‘AI’, ‘Blockchain’, and ‘Quantum Computing’.

According to the IBM Institute for Business Value, 85 percent of companies worldwide are using multi-cloud, and by 2021, 98 percent will adopt hybrid multi-cloud. In addition, various financial regulations are anticipated to be eased in 2019, including the revision of the Electronic Banking Supervision Regulation, so that many companies are expected to effectively use the private cloud and public cloud, both of which establish a cloud environment in their own data centers, together. IBM Korea is ready to offer services and solutions for multi-cloud management with its hybrid multi-cloud capability, cloud security and open source competitiveness, and will lead the market with private cloud leadership.

At the same time, with the rise of AI and cloud, it was announced that ‘Security’ aspect is significant. In the situation in which personal information and data protection issues are strengthened and Europe GDPR much be complied, domestic security market size is 2.2 trillion won and security service market is 1.26 trillion won. Therefore, IBM Korea stated that it will provide security-related services through SOC in the field by a manpower that customer wants, or solve the shortage of specific security manpower by providing the security technology using artificial intelligent through SOC.

Moreover, IBM Korea explained that the 'AI' is expected to grow at a CAGR of 69.8% in the Asia-Pacific region by 2021, spending $5 billion, and 70% of Asia-Pacific companies use AI. The firm asserted that it will make the process of how AI decides and studies with data transparent. Also, it will use ‘AI Open Scale’ technology to detect data bias and provide solutions to prevent misinformation during the process of training AI.

In addition, IBM Korea will concentrate on 'Blockchain', expecting to reduce transaction costs by 35% by 2021 as implement industry-specific blockchain and the omni-ecosystem expands. At the government level, blockchain is expected to become more active as the government plans to encourage blockchain technology such as voting, shipping, logistics, and intergovernmental documents with the 25 billion won of budget this year. Therefore, IBM Korea has grown by 400% in the blockchain field last year and activated about 600 projects and 10 blockchain networks. In this year, IBM Korea expects the token economy to become more active this year, with the announcement and activation of various blockchain commercialization networks in each industry.

Lastly, ‘Quantum Computing’ that IBM Korea saw potential and focused on was introduced. More than 100,000 people worldwide have experienced the ‘IBM Q’ through IBM Cloud, more than 5 million of experiments and more than 110 papers were published, and 1800 institutions and 300 private research institutes are using ‘IBM Q’. Currently, only Samsung Electronics is participating in the development of the quantum computer ‘IBM Q’. In the first half of this year, IBM will announce a quantum computing program in which major institutions and companies participated, and the first commercial version of the quantum computing system and quantum cryptography.

▲ IBM Korea tries to solve the shortage of specific security manpower through SOC or remote SOC.

▲ It was stated that IBM Korea will use ‘AI Open Scale’ technology to detect data bias and provide solutions.

▲ In the first half of this year, IBM Korea will announce a quantum computing program in which major organizations and companies participated.

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