The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Association for ICT Promotion (KAIT) on Thursday held a performance-sharing meeting in Seoul’s Gangnam district to share results from the “AI-integrated OTT global expansion support” programme and to discuss responses to the global FAST market.

The ministry said it prepared a “K-OTT industry global competitiveness strengthening strategy” last year to respond to changes in the global FAST market. It pushed overseas expansion based on K-FAST platforms so domestic content can reduce reliance on global OTT platforms.

In April, it launched the “Global K-FAST Alliance” to strengthen public-private cooperation for K-FAST global expansion and to support collaboration among various companies. The number of participating companies and institutions increased more than threefold to 68 from 22 at the time of the launch.

Using 8 billion won secured in this year’s supplementary budget, it selected 6 consortia to 추진 an “AI-dubbing-specialised K-FAST channel” initiative. The consortia built 20 K-channels across various genres with AI dubbing.

Each consortium will provide about 1,200 titles totaling about 1,400 hours of K-content to viewers in 22 countries across 20 channels, after quality upgrades and dubbing in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

Through the programme, AI dubbing companies became able to improve business viability by accumulating data and securing references. Content companies can secure intellectual property rights to dubbed content while substantially cutting costs and time. Platform companies can create new revenue sources by streaming high-quality dubbed K-content.

About 150 industry officials from AI, OTT and FAST, content and advertising attended the meeting. They shared this year’s results from the project supporting the spread of AI-dubbing-specialised K-FAST. They also discussed strategies and cooperation measures to target the global FAST market.

It also awarded citations from the deputy prime minister and minister of science and ICT to 13 people recognised for contributing to the promotion of the domestic OTT industry and the activation of overseas expansion, encouraging their efforts.

Choi Woo-hyuk, director-general of network policy at the ministry, said it will actively support strengthening competitiveness and overseas expansion for domestic platform, AI dubbing and content companies through building K-platforms and AI integration.