NAVER Strikes a Deal with Saudi Arabia to Revolutionize Saudi Arabia’s Future Cities Using Cloud-based Digital Twin Tech
NAVER Strikes a Deal with Saudi Arabia to Revolutionize Saudi Arabia’s Future Cities Using Cloud-based Digital Twin Tech
Team NAVER is extending its technology platforms to the Middle East, accelerating its global initiatives
NAVER Strikes a Deal with Saudi Arabia to Revolutionize Saudi Arabia’s Future Cities Using Cloud-based Digital Twin Technologies
- NAVER secured the digital twin project from Saudi Arabia’s MOMRAH, targeting five cities over five years
- The project involves urban planning, monitoring, and flood prediction and marks a significant achievement within a year of Team NAVER’s participating in “One Team Korea” - Digital twins are seen as platforms and infrastructures aimed at creating sustainable ecosystems and synergies are expected with Saudi Arabian and Korean start-ups and institutions
- NAVER, which has heavily invested in leading R&D technologies, achieves international recognition for Korean IT technologies in the Middle East
October 24, 2023
Team NAVER, on a mission for “global” expansion, is extending its reach in Asia, North America, and Europe to the Middle East. Following the remarkable success with Line in Japan, Team NAVER has targeted the North American and European markets with content and consumer-to-consumer (C2C) services. It is worth noting whether the Middle East will become a key platform for Team NAVER’s global expansion.
Team NAVER announced on October 24 that it has been entrusted with the national-level digital twin platform construction project from the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Municipal, Rural Affairs and Housing (MOMRAH) and will carry out the project targeting five cities, including the capital, Riyadh.
This project is Team NAVER’s first large-scale business in the Middle East. It is also noteworthy that a Korean information technology (IT) company is taking on the construction of cloud-based digital twin platforms and fundamental infrastructure for the development of smart cities. Team NAVER plans to consolidate all resources and expertise for this project, with NAVER identifying continuous collaboration opportunities and facilitating communication between the governments of both countries, NAVER Labs advancing its cutting-edge technologies, and NAVER Cloud supporting stable cloud technologies and businesses.
NAVER accomplished this in less than a year after participating in “One Team Korea” in Saudi Arabia last November under the leadership of the Minister of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. In March, NAVER signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Saudi MOMRAH for the country’s digital transformation. Furthermore, key officials from Saudi Arabia have made nine visits to NAVER 1784, with Abdullah Alswaha, Saudi Minister of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, most recently visiting in October.
For the next five years, NAVER will develop and operate cloud-based 3D digital twin platforms across five cities in Saudi Arabia, including Riyadh, Medina, Jeddah, Dammam, and Mecca. Saudi Arabia plans to use these in urban planning, monitoring, and flood prediction. In other words, Korea’s representative IT company will be at the forefront of establishing and managing public digital services closely related to the daily lives of Saudi Arabians from the outset.
Winning this project is also a significant achievement for NAVER, showcasing to the world its technological prowess in constructing next-generation, future-oriented smart cities. Saudi Arabia’s decision to partner with NAVER over global tech giants is attributable to Team NAVER’s world-class technological expertise. In a global technology comparison conducted by MOMRAH, NAVER was recognized for its ability to deliver rapid and highly scalable digital twin solutions.
The company has cultivated unique technologies, allowing it to precisely replicate an entire city with a minimal margin of error of approximately 10 cm. Its self-developed mapping robots and data processing infrastructure are also notable. Alongside this, NAVER is equipped with expansive indoor space mapping technology and robust cloud capabilities characterized by a decade’s worth of expertise in Triple Zero (Zero Downtime, Zero Accidents, Zero Disasters). Given that digital twins are city- and national-level infrastructure platforms that require long-term construction and continuous management, NAVER intends to incorporate all of its cutting-edge technologies in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and cloud that have been continuously upgraded since the construction of NAVER 1784 to build the world’s premier digital twin platforms.
NAVER also intends to expand the ecosystem by partnering with relevant institutions and start-ups in Saudi Arabia and Korea. NAVER’s cloud-based digital twin platform in Saudi Arabia, will be an open platform accessible to start-ups and specialized institutions alike. Various services can emerge from this platform, such as smart city designs using simulators, urban water management tools, realistic virtual real estate showcases, service robots, autonomous driving technologies, road-level traffic information, and AI mapping services. Collaborations are already underway, with organizations such as LX and K-water, who have both entered into MOUs with NAVER, actively contributing to the development of the digital twin platform.
Through this initiative, NAVER plans to form a local corporation in Saudi Arabia and develop a cloud region in the Middle East. Discussions concerning the use of NAVER’s large-scale AI and cloud services to address policy issues faced by Saudi Arabia's MOMRAH are also expected to accelerate.
NAVER aims to further speed up its technological global expansion, using this project as a pivotal stepping stone. With a rich history of success in various fields, such as messaging, commerce, and content, NAVER has already penetrated markets in Asia, North America, and Europe. The company has achieved a significant milestone by exporting business-to-government (B2G) and business-to-business (B2B) IT technologies to the Middle East, with plans to further enhance its global strategy across various services and technologies. This exportation of cloud-based smart city technologies to the Middle East, which is anticipated to broaden into sectors such as HyperCLOVA X, Sovereign AI, and Sovereign Cloud, indicates a promising trajectory for the rapid advancement of NAVER’s cloud operations.
Chae Seon-ju, President of NAVER’s ESG and External Policy, said, "We hold a deep appreciation for those companies that, through tireless efforts, paved the way for Korea to become an economic powerhouse by exporting construction plants to the Middle East. Leveraging NAVER's globally competitive technologies, we aim to spearhead the second wave of export boom to the Middle East. With this project as a starting point, NAVER will also act as a bridge for Korean IT startups entering the Middle Eastern market."
Meanwhile, the digital twin platform construction project in Saudi Arabia coincided with an official state visit accompanied by a business delegation, marking this as the first export of the “Digital Platform Government,” a national strategy and a model of public-private collaboration.
