South Korea’s telecom giant KT Corp. on Monday vowed to invest more than 20 billion won ($17.6 million) to build an autonomous vehicle testing complex by December 2019 in the Pangyo Zero City, which is under construction in Gyeonggi Province.

The high-tech industrial complex for driverless cars that will command a total space of 432,000 square meters will be fully supported by artificial intelligence (AI) and big data technologies, according to the company.

Autonomous cars can drive around the roads for performance test in the complex where a real-life setting will be built, allowing ordinary cars and pedestrians to pass by. To enable this, KT will establish the fifth-generation (5G) network this year to provide its hybrid vehicle-to-everything (V2X) network service that makes it possible to use security-enhanced long term evolution (LTE) network and wireless excess for vehicular environments (WAVE) at the same time. In addition, the company will offer big data solutions for data analysis of driverless cars and Internet of Things (IoT) services for self-driving safety such as road monitoring and pedestrian protection.

“We’re enhancing our self-driving capabilities of vehicles thanks to the autonomous vehicle testing road construction project that started June,” said an official at KT. “To boost the smart vehicle industry, we’ll support the technology development of related startups and provide consulting services.”

Shares of KT Tuesday closed 0.86 percent down at 28,900 won from the previous session.

By Seo Dong-cheol

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