Building the national ICT frontier: The case of Korea

A new, systematic and integrated way of building a national information and communication technology (ICT) frontier is proposed for countries specialized in ICT for export. Using patent citation as a proxy of interaction between technologies, a national ICT network is developed. Local core ICTs are identified by using two centrality measures and five brokerage measures. The importance in terms of direct flow and indirect flow is captured separately. To keep abreast of global trends, global ICT network is developed and benchmarked. Adding locally missing but globally important ICTs to local core ICT lists, an overall national ICT frontier is built. Cluster-based strategic frontiers are also established to provide a way of focusing on key technologies efficiently and to open various strategic opportunities for national ICT development. Korea's ICT industry is exemplified in order to make the application of the method clear.