This is a first in the country, and could foster better international collaborations on all manners of research, education and innovation
In line with South Korea’s drive to build repute as a hub of research and development and digital innovation, the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) has successfully launched the first 600G nationwide research network in the country and possibly in Asia.
The network, believed to be the first research network in Asia to provide long-distance 600G capabilities, enables KISTI to stay ahead of unpredictable network demands required for the cutting-edge research by KREONET member institutions.
Additionally, the network employs commercial technology claimed to improve optical network performance and optimize power utilization. According to BuSeung Cho, Director of KREONET Center: “With the recent increase in data-intensive science based on petascale or exascale data, many of the research tasks performed by our member institutions are driven by large-scale big data. Therefore, we have built KREONET, a high-speed national science and research network between member institutions. This collaborative research environment enables cutting-edge scientific and technological research and requires a high-speed network.”
Cho said this requirement is fulfilled by the 600G research network, which can “support the capacity and high bandwidth demands required by domestic and foreign member institutions.” The technology runs on a “packet-optical platform” that converges packet switching, optical transport networking and photonics tools to offer better automation, control, and visibility to optical networking across long distances. In addition, compared to previous generations of the technology, the newest version is claimed to have a reduce footprint and energy consumption by 50% or more.
Said Henry Kim, President, North Asia, Ciena, the technology partner for KISTI, South Korea was the first country to launch commercial 5G service for example, and “much of this progress is a result of the priority South Korea places on research and development,” and with the new KREONET in place, KISTI members will be able to innovate and collaborate better with their peers.
