This essay examines the rise of the keypunch services export in South Korea during the 1970s. Keypunch service export involved labor-intensive, semi-skilled work of entering data into punch cards, performed by young women for overseas clients in the United States and Japan. Based on government documents, media reports, journal publications, and memoirs of historical figures, I argue that keypunch services were shaped by and aligned with local discourses such as “modernization of the fatherland” and “economic self-reliance,” producing visible and tangible outcomes to advance a nation that did not yet have the “computer-mind.” In this process, the service became a symbol of South Korea’s readiness to enter the new age of technological modernization, and its operators were regarded as meticulous workers with nimble hands, who could become compliant contributors to this endeavor. The problems in their work environment only came to light after the decline of the export industry, revealing the heavy toll of South Korea’s move toward modernization. This historical case adds depth to the common critique of outsourced data work as part of postcolonial exploitation, demonstrating how developmental states like South Korea actively mobilized their people and justified expanding labor-intensive services within their borders.