Korean investors establish alliance to develop smart city tech for Vietnam

Korean investors will bring to bear their tried and tested technologies to develop smart city tech for Vietnam

Daewoo E&C Vina has signed a strategic partnership with SparkLabs Korea and Bespin Global to collectively build a smart city platform in Vietnam. The three companies plan to build and operate a smart city-integrated management platform to utilise data generated from Daewoo E&C's Vietnam smart city and smart construction effort. Additionally, they plan to introduce and implement open innovation to discover, invest, and nurture technology startups to be introduced into ASEAN countries with a primary focus on Vietnam.

Daewoo E&C's smart city initiative is seeking to solve urban problems caused by rapid urbanisation following Vietnam's economic growth, and to improve the efficiency of urban infrastructure operations and management. Through this partnership, Daewoo E&C plans to build a core smart city data-management system for a new city project in Vietnam and build an integrated city platform to accelerate the development and commercialisation of smart city element technologies.

Bespin Global supports Daewoo E&C's Vietnam smart city platform and strategies. Specifically, it plans to attract R&D and innovation centres, which are essential elements of a smart city platform, and build and support a smart city development platform and cloud infrastructure.

Meanwhile, SparkLabs will operate and foster the "Vietnam Smart Tech Fund", which specialises in smart city solution startup investment and acceleration. Since SparkLabs Group is a leader in early-stage venture capital in Asia, it is ideally suited to partner with Daewoo E&C Vina and lead this new venture capital fund. In addition, it will pilot cloud smart city solutions such as autonomous driving, big data, AI, and machine learning with Bespin Global and other select partners.

"Startups with innovative technologies have played a prominent role in the creation of representative smart cities such as Singapore, Dubai, New York, and London," said Eugene Kim, general partner at SparkLabs Korea and SparkLabs Group. He continued, "Based on the know-how of SparkLabs Group, which has fostered leading startups in major cities across the globe, we will discover high-capacity startups that will build successful smart cities in ASEAN countries."

"Daewoo Starlake City, which is being developed by Daewoo E&C, is Vietnam's first demonstrative city that is applying smart technologies such as a drone control system, building information modeling (BIM)-based construction and operation management, and air quality measurement system. It has contributed to the improvement of Hanoi's city environment," said Sung-Jin Cho, executive vice president of Daewoo E&C.

Min-Sik Cho, CEO of Bespin Global, said, "In order for a smart city to succeed, it is essential to build a 'smart city platform' that can collect and analyse various data created by facilities and services in the process of urban development and operation, as well as demonstration projects of element technologies."

He added, "I have high expectations because Bespin Global's technology can contribute to the construction of Daewoo E&C's smart city development platform and cloud infrastructure."