As the US-China technology hegemony competition intensifies, the race has moved beyond platform and service innovation to fierce competition for strategic technologies that determine national security and supply chain dominance in advanced industries. At the heart of this competition lie deep tech sectors including semiconductors, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, space, and energy. Deep tech, based on advanced science and engineering, requires long periods for research and development and technology maturation, demands large-scale capital investment, and carries high risks. However, once successful, it possesses strategic attributes that can lead industrial restructuring through new industry creation and generate long-term monopolistic advantages.
Advanced nations including Korea are rapidly shifting from dispersed R&D support to concentrated investment centered on national strategic technologies with full-cycle support systems to secure deep tech innovation outcomes. The key to deep tech innovation is not simply producing R&D results but connecting technology development achievements—the bottleneck of innovation—to actual industrial and market outcomes. A competitive deep tech industrial ecosystem must be established beyond simple technology transfer to secure a foundation for technology hegemony competition.
The Daedeok region, where government-funded research institutes and private laboratories are concentrated, has been a space where science and technology-based R&D investment has been intensively directed over the past 50 years. While criticism existed that commercialization outcomes were insufficient compared to the substantial investment, deep tech companies with significant innovation outcomes have recently emerged, raising expectations for the establishment of a powerful innovation cluster. Deep tech companies are emerging in core industries of the AI era, including semiconductor equipment and components, precision materials and parts, bio-life sciences, defense and space, and robotics.
These companies show high growth potential—seven of the top 10 KOSDAQ companies by market capitalization (as of August 2025), including four Daedeok-based firms, are Daedeok-related companies. This market performance demonstrates that Daedeok is evolving beyond a research-concentrated space into an innovation cluster stage where technology connects to markets. However, internal and external interest and policy evaluation of the deep tech innovation outcomes created in Daedeok remain insufficient.
The main reasons are that Daedeok-based companies still lack global market dominance, resulting in low recognition, and the innovation ecosystem's dynamism is weak, failing to attract sufficient investor attention. Additionally, inadequate implementation of national strategies and innovation ecosystem policies toward becoming a deep tech powerhouse, as well as slow policy transitions to reset the role of government-funded research institutes, appear to be significant factors. Daedeok has the potential to develop into a deep tech innovation cluster with excellent technology capabilities and innovation elements including strategic technology capacity, outstanding talent, and innovative companies. However, for Daedeok to grow into a global-level deep tech innovation cluster, strategic technology strategy transitions and policy improvements are necessary.
First, the deep tech field must advance beyond knowledge production or achieving individual technology development goals to industry and market creation. This requires patient capital through public investment that tolerates failure, unlike venture investment premised on quick returns from the private sector. Strategic intervention through public procurement is important to secure patient capital and early markets, which Daedeok lacks. R&D-centered strategies must also transition to strategies integrating R&D and innovation that encompass industry and markets.
Second, considering that global markets are rapidly advancing through quick commercialization of strategic technologies and creation of leading companies, a policy transition is needed from supply-driven commercialization models to models supporting new industry ecosystem construction. As China emphasizes in its 15th Five-Year Plan (March 2026) that strategic technology outcomes should lead to leading company creation through rapid industrialization, efforts should focus on creating global leading companies through new industry ecosystem construction, moving beyond simple technology transfer or startup support.
Third, a mission-oriented open research system strengthening openness and connectivity between Daedeok's government-funded research institutes and the deep tech innovation cluster must be activated. Linked construction of various infrastructure for commercialization including demonstration and certification is also necessary, and linked development with innovation clusters in major regions (AI sector: Gwangju, Changwon) using Daedeok as a hub should be considered. This requires reorganization of regional innovation spatial policies and specialization and critical mass scaling of government-funded research institute branches. However, maintaining an appropriate balance between exploration and application is important to avoid undermining the autonomous research foundation of government-funded research institutes.
Fourth, for a global deep tech innovation cluster to emerge, an integrated policy program encompassing talent, R&D, commercialization, demonstration and certification, financial investment (patient capital), regulation, public procurement, and regional innovation (spatial policy) related to market creation from R&D is necessary. This requires organic combination among technology policy, enterprise policy, and industrial policy, and policy governance reform to lead this initiative. The role of the Science and Technology Innovation Headquarters, currently focused on budget deliberation, should be considered for transformation into a leading entity for deep tech-based national innovation growth.
Technology hegemony is strengthened based on innovation-led growth. Therefore, this is an era where innovation strategy and policy design capacity and execution are important alongside increased R&D budget investment. R&D investment must lead to economic growth and wealth creation through innovation. However, there has been no significant change in national innovation clusters, a key instrument, except for Pangyo's IT platform cluster. Daedeok shows the potential to grow into a new deep tech national innovation cluster surpassing Pangyo. The government should demonstrate strategic capability and policy capacity to nurture massive deep tech innovation flowers centered on Daedeok.
