Asia-Pacific

Instead of banning or disincentivizing the use of personalized recommendation algorithms to address online radicalization, policymakers should promote targeted interventions that empower users to shape their content experience, encourage responsible innovation, and support appropriate transparency and independent research into potential risks.

Assigning an advanced industry to every region will not, by itself, create successful tech hubs. Korea should concentrate resources in promising clusters, revise funding as private investment and customer demand emerge, and improve daily life in waning communities.

Join ITIF for a panel discussion with international experts on a forthcoming report analyzing a decade of previously uncompiled KFTC enforcement data, what its findings mean for U.S.–Korea economic relations, and how policymakers in both countries should respond.

KFTC enforcement data suggests de facto bias against leading American technology companies. Given this record, U.S. policymakers should demand fair treatment for U.S. firms, and South Korean policymakers should reconsider expanding the KFTC’s authority over online platforms.

For policymakers to bolster regional competitiveness in the global economy, they first must know where they stand. This report—coauthored by ITIF and the Institute for Competitiveness, India—benchmarks the 87 regions of India and the United States using 12 commonly available indicators of strength in the knowledge economy, globalization, and innovation capacity.

Japan was a competitor inside the U.S. alliance system. China is a rival trying to replace it. Waiting for China to repeat Japan’s slowdown is not a strategy.

The Proposed Amendment would have the effect of “protecting” startups by frustrating larger firms from acquiring their founders and employees. Adopting such a policy would predictably chill incentives to innovate.

Daniel Castro speaks about the potential of improving science and technology policy through the use of AI and predictive analytics on the "Intelligence beyond Information, Signal beyond Noise: EWS Detecting Emerging Security" panel at the 2026 Intelligence Dialogue in Seoul, South Korea, hosted by the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI).

ITIF applauds the Ministry for removing much of the digital-platform specific language from the earlier version of the Draft Law, but remains concerned that what remains in the proposed amendments, especially to Articles 26 and 27, may result in de facto discrimination against digital platforms.

South Korea’s AI-memory boom proves that it can still lead at the technological frontier. The proposed Future Response Fund and national megaprojects will test whether South Korea can turn that lead into stronger suppliers, exportable capabilities, and allied scale before Chinese expansion narrows its industrial base.