VANK, led by Director Park Gi-tae, officially launched an AI-powered Global Digital Diplomacy Situation Room (https://koreaimpact.one/) on July 1, 2026. The platform is designed to analyze Korea-related data from around the world in real time and provide country-specific public diplomacy strategies.
According to VANK, the platform was developed to deliver data-driven insights into global perceptions of Korea at a time when the Korean Wave reaches an estimated 200 million fans worldwide and more than 7 million overseas Koreans.
The system continuously collects, translates, summarizes, and analyzes data from 89 countries, including Korea-related search trends, international media coverage, consumption patterns for Korean music, films, television dramas, and webtoons, as well as YouTube trends. The information is presented through a single integrated dashboard.
One of the platform’s key features is the Global Hallyu Interest Map, an interactive 3D globe that visualizes each country’s level of interest in Korea.
The platform generates a Hallyu Interest Index for each country by combining indicators such as international news coverage, page views of knowledge-based content, and YouTube viewership. Countries are then classified into five levels of interest: Reference, Interest, Attention, High Interest, and Focus.
The platform also analyzes monthly interest levels and recent trends in major categories of Korean cultural content—including K-pop, Korean dramas, Korean cuisine, and webtoons—across major language markets, including English, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, French, and German.
VANK noted that while government agencies such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism invest annually in public diplomacy and conduct surveys on Korea’s national image and the Korean Wave, those studies are typically conducted once a year, limiting their ability to capture rapidly changing global opinion.
“Today, Korea is no longer evaluated only within the Korean Peninsula,” Park Gi-tae said. “We have used AI technology to analyze real-time global trends that annual government statistics cannot capture and integrated them into a single strategic dashboard.”
He added, “We hope young people and citizens will use this data to grow into AI diplomats, AI lawmakers, and AI leaders of international organizations, while gaining a broader understanding of the world.”