The Fourth Industrial Revolution refers to creating a hyper-connected society through the convergence of core technologies. It entails establishing a mutual communication system between production equipment and products through Internet of Things and optimizing the entire production process. It also entails creating a world of networks in which large quantities of information could be shared through convergence of technologies that blur the boundaries between different fields such as physics, biology, and digital technology, and through human-to-things and machine-to-machine connections. Core technologies such as 3D printing, artificial intelligence, big data, and virtual reality, which are the future technologies that represent the Fourth Industrial Revolution, are having a major impact on dentistry and will have even greater impact moving forward. Digital dentistry, which has undergone rapid advances in recent years, can be an example, in which current developments are for treatment purposes such as surgery and restoration. However, in the future, I believe that core technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution will be useful for the development of preventive dentistry, including big data-based research on oral health using large quantities of data and oral health education using virtual reality.

Therefore, I hope that researchers studying oral health will take an even greater interest in the Fourth Industrial Revolution and achieve more effective, efficient, and groundbreaking advancements by integrating the contents of current research with new technologies. Moreover, I am also hopeful that introduction and sharing of such new efforts and advancements through academic journals could provide the opportunities to gain synergistic effects.