SM Entertainment's founding chairman, Lee Soo-man (SM Entertainment)

SM Entertainment’s next boy band will have “unlimited” number of members, the agency’s founding chairman announced Wednesday.

Delivering a presentation, “SMTOWN: New Culture Technology 2016,” at the Coex Artium, chairman Lee Soo-Man said, “SM Entertainment’s next boy band, following EXO, will be named ‘NCT,’ with ‘unlimited’ number of members within the group.”

“NCT” stands for “New Culture Technology,” which happens to be the title of the presentation. The group will have subunit teams comprising different members from selected cities around the world, and collaborations among those teams

By elaborating on the keyword, “unlimited,” each team will have lax regulations on accepting new members if necessary. The main goal of this “project” is for the K-pop artists to have the entire world as their performing stage.

SM will debut NCT’s first unit within the first half of 2016 in Seoul and Tokyo, then debut other teams within main cities in China in the latter half.

EXO (SM Entertainment)

Units to perform in regions within Southeast Asia and South America are also in their plan book. Japan’s top girl group, AKB 48 have established similar tactics in the past by forming subunits in different cities outside Japan and succeeded.

NCT’s main role is to “localize” K-pop within various countries with different culture. The K-entertainment giant has managed to bring all of their groups to successful stardom so far and everyone is wondering whether “NTC” will make a big leap on the global stage.

By Jung Min-kyung (mkj1105@heraldcorp.com)