Korea SMEs and Startups Agency (KOSME) said on the 16th that, together with Daegu Mechatronics and Materials Institute (DMI) and Global Robot Cluster (GRC), it has established an overseas testbed in Boston for artificial intelligence (AI) robots.
The U.S. hub for testing in the AI robot field of the Global Innovation Regulation-Free Special Zone was set up at the "NERVE CENTER."
The Global Innovation Regulation-Free Special Zone is a program the Ministry of SMEs and Startups has been promoting since 2024. It supports special exemptions for testing new technologies and new industries in Korea.
It designates specific regions and industrial sectors so promising corporations that need overseas certification or local testing can verify their technologies in real market environments. As a model that expands and advances the existing Regulation-Free Special Zone system by one step, Korea SMEs and Startups Agency (KOSME) is carrying out the program as the specialized operating agency.
The Boston hub was created to help corporations in Daegu's AI robot sector, designated as a global special zone in May last year, enter the U.S. market and gain a foothold locally. The project is led by Daegu Mechatronics and Materials Institute, with Korea SMEs and Startups Agency (KOSME) and Global Robot Cluster collaborating.
A Korea SMEs and Startups Agency (KOSME) official said, "In Korea, due to restrictions under the Personal Information Protection Act, robots are limited from collecting people's video, movement, and location data for AI training," and noted, "By contrast, at the test site, advanced Autonomous Driving functions such as complex crowd environment perception and prediction of pedestrians' sudden behavior can be implemented using original, real-person-based data."
Korea SMEs and Startups Agency (KOSME) plans to compare and verify training performance when using original data and pseudonymized information separately through the testing, and analyze the impact of using original data on improving AI performance.
Company A, located in the Daegu special zone and participating in the testing, is developing a medical waste transport robot combined with AI video training. Through this testing, it plans to advance in-hospital Autonomous Driving and administrator recognition and identification functions.
Ban Jeong-sik, regional innovation director at Korea SMEs and Startups Agency (KOSME), said, "Securing data through overseas local testing is an important foundation for our AI robot corporations to secure global competitiveness," and added, "We will check difficulties and continue post-management so that special-zone corporations can establish themselves stably in the Americas market."