South Korea and its Smart K-Cities

  • October 24, 2024
  • William Payne

South Korea has one of the longest running national smart city programmes in the world. Its programme dates back to 2003, when the first national pilot city projects were initiated. The programme now incorporates all the largest cities in Korea, including a greenfield development of the country’s designated future capital, as well as 64 smaller urban communities throughout the country.

The programme had an initially bumpy ride, with both successes and the occasional early failure. The lessons of the pilot programmes have led to a changed, more evolutionary approach.

From the lessons learnt, the technology and experience developed by both Korean companies such as LG, SK Telecom and KT, and international partners, which include IBM and Siemens, South Korea has developed a thriving international market in exporting its smart city technologies, expertise and project consultancy. Supported by the country’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport (MOLIT), South Korean cities and companies have partnered with cities across South East Asia, the Gulf, Africa, Europe and South America.

In Europe, South Korea has developed strong connections with UK, Netherlands and Italian professional smart city institutions and participate in major smart city projects, including London, Liverpool, Amsterdam and Verona.

South Korea’s smart city has its beginning in the country’s conception of the Ubiquitous City which resulted in the first smart city projects beginning in 2003. The Ubiquitous City, designated as the u-City in Korean descriptions, is related to the concept of Ubiquitous Computing, or pervasive computing, which was pioneered by Xerox PARC CTO Mark Weiser in the 1990s, led to MIT CSAIL’s Project Oxygen, and attracted great interest in Japan and Korea, including the establishment of the Ubiquitous Networking Laboratory by Ken Sakamura at the University of Tokyo.

The first u-City project to be established is the Songdo International Business District, a planned city in Incheon to the south west of Seoul. The second u-City project was Busan, which was established in 2005. A third u-City followed at Daegu, the country’s third largest city.

Songdo, Busan and Daegu smart cities represent two alternate approaches to the smart city concept, and the cities provided South Korea with experience that has moulded future smart city developments.

Songdo City is an ambitious concept on a greenfield site to build an international business city on the coast that would rival Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai. The first u-City to be developed, it took an aggressive approach to both technology and construction. The city aimed, even in 2003, to be sustainable and carbon-neutral, while attracting major international businesses.

Busan and Daegu, by contrast, were already the second and third largest cities in South Korea, with thriving economies and, in Busan’s case, an expanding tourist and cultural economy. The two cities conceived their adoption of smart city approaches as improving their traffic, energy, and healthcare infrastructures and making life better for their residents. Their approach was to augment and improve through an evolutionary approach.

While Songdo City expanded rapidly, with its twin aims of being a showcase for technology and a business centre to rival Singapore, its costs escalated. It also neglected the community and social aspects that make cities, such as Seoul and Busan, so successful. As a result, Songdo has struggled to attract either residents or businesses, as cheaper and more attractive options could be found in Seoul or Incheon itself.

The evolutionary, complementary approach to smart city development adopted first by Busan and followed by Daegu has proved far more successful. Both cities continue to develop and add new smart city functions and improvements. They have become a template for smart city development in South Korea.

Another major smart city project in the country is the Seoul Smart City, which adopted its current smart city plan in 2021. Seoul has an ambitious smart city vision that includes extensive deployment of IoT, Metaverse and AI technologies.

In 2019, MOLIT launched the K-City Smart Challenge to escalate development and adoption of smart city approaches in the country. Since 2019, details of the competition such as submission deadlines, application conditions, and allocated award amounts are announced every year between February and April. The K-City Smart Challenge has encouraged cities and vendors to retain special project teams for smart city projects. MOLIT maintains an annual budget to seed-fund the awarded projects, which has grown over tenfold since its original launch in 2019.

An important feature of the evolving South Korean approach to smart cities is the development of the Integrated Operation and Control Centre (IOCC). This is an urban management platform that gathers, analyses, and distributes information for mobility, disaster management, and crime. The country’s experience at the time of the Covid-19 pandemic confirmed the utility of the IOCC platform.

South Korea has been actively exporting its smart city technology and expertise to other countries. The country’s experience and technological advancements have made it a sought-after partner for international smart city projects. South Korean companies, such as Samsung and LG, are also involved in providing smart city solutions to global markets.

Key smart city export markets earmarked by South Korea’s Government and companies include:

  • Smart transportation systems: Intelligent traffic management, autonomous vehicles, and public transportation systems.
  • Smart energy solutions: Smart grids, renewable energy integration, and energy efficiency technologies.
  • Smart governance: E-government services, citizen participation platforms, and urban data analytics.
  • Smart healthcare: Telemedicine, wearable devices, and remote patient monitoring.

The country’s smart city export strategy is aided by the development of its K-City Network, launched in 2020. The K-City Network aims to help overseas governments establish smart city plans and export smart city solutions. Overseas collaborations include projects in Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK, Poland, Ecuador, Columbia, Saudi Arabia, Canada, the United States, Singapore and Japan.