ROBOTIS, a core robot parts corporations, is accelerating its robot hardware business by expanding supplies of five-finger Humanoid Robot units. Having grown with actuators—robot joint drive devices—as its mainstay, the company is widening its business scope to robot hands and robot platforms to target the Humanoid Robot market. As the physical AI market grows, domestic robot parts companies are increasingly expanding their portfolios beyond simple parts supply to high value-added modules and finished goods.
An actuator, a core robot part that converts electrical signals into physical movement, controls all robot motions and accounts for about half of total cost. A single humanoid typically contains more than 50 actuators of various types. In this parts market long led by U.S. and Japanese corporations, domestic companies are rapidly entering the supply chains of major global robot companies based on source technologies accumulated over decades.
◇ Five-finger robots lining up big tech… "They ship as fast as we assemble"
According to the industry on the 18th, ROBOTIS is supplying its Humanoid Robot "AI Worker," equipped with five-finger robot hands, to big tech companies including Google and Apple and to research institutions such as MIT. With five humanlike fingers on both arms, a camera on the head, and wheels on the legs, the robot's current supply volume cannot keep up with demand.
A ROBOTIS official said, "Customers who have been purchasing actuators are placing consecutive orders for robot hardware as well," and noted, "We are rushing to expand mass-production capacity because units are shipping as soon as we assemble them." With rising demand, ROBOTIS expects AI Worker sales to exceed 200 units this year.
What drew big tech's interest was differentiation in the drive method using proprietary ultra-compact actuator technology and cost reduction from parts internalization. ROBOTIS drives its robot hand with a "pure motor" method that directly embeds 20 ultra-compact, self-developed actuators in each finger joint.
By contrast, robot hands adopted by several global corporations such as Tesla Optimus use a "cable driven" method in which a motor pulls wires to control the fingers. While this allows slimmer fingers and is advantageous for weight reduction, the wires stretch when lifting heavy objects, requiring parts replacement every five to six weeks, which has been cited as an obstacle to mass production of Humanoid Robot units. ROBOTIS's product operates on current control without wires, solving such maintenance issues and improving durability and precision.
In addition, by internalizing the entire process from core parts like actuators to finished goods, the company secured price competitiveness. While high-performance robot hands generally cost tens of millions of won, ROBOTIS's robot hand is 8.8 million won. Although it has been less than two months since its release in Jan., orders from big tech are pouring in. The AI Worker finished goods equipped with this robot hand is also priced at a relatively affordable 96 million won, compared with competitors' robots that go for hundreds of millions of won.
◇ From parts to finished goods, driven by the "data war"
The key goal behind ROBOTIS expanding from 27 years of focus on actuator parts supply to finished goods robot hardware is data acquisition. To realize physical AI, action data containing the physical movements of actual robots is essential, and this can only be obtained with operable hardware. Through its own actuator control program, ROBOTIS plans to enhance hardware based on user data accumulated over 20 years and deploy it at real manufacturing and logistics sites to build empirical data.
The company is also hurrying to expand overseas production bases to meet surging demand. It plans to establish a production base in Uzbekistan, where labor costs are one-tenth of Korea's, to target the rapidly growing Humanoid Robot industries in China and the United States. The plant will be completed in Jul. and enter full operation in the fourth quarter. The site will produce actuators, robot hands, and AI Worker units. Actuator production capacity alone will increase tenfold, from 300,000 to 3 million units. Through this, the company aims to reduce hardware product prices by 30% to 40%.
◇ Korean reducer companies also expanding their reach
Other domestic robot parts corporations are advancing their businesses based on source technologies. Representative examples are companies that earned recognition by localizing precision reducers for robot joints in a market once monopolized by Japanese corporations. A reducer is a key device that lowers a motor's rotational speed to help a robot exert strong power and perform precise movements. In response to the reorganization of global robot supply chains, they are expanding beyond single-part supply into drive modules.
SBB TECH, which first localized harmonic reducers, has built a dedicated actuator plant in Cheonan, South Chungcheong, and begun preparations for full-scale operation. SPG, which mass-produces all three types of precision reducers (harmonic, planetary, RV), is developing humanoid actuators that integrate a motor, reducer, and controller, and will begin establishing mass-production systems in the first half of this year.
According to UBS, a global investment bank (IB), the Humanoid Robot market is expected to expand to $30 billion to $50 billion (about 44 trillion won to 75 trillion won) by 2035. An industry official said, "Along with the expansion of the Humanoid Robot market, corporations with core parts technologies are focusing on expanding their business scope from simple parts to modules or hardware to secure empirical data," adding, "It is a strategic move to strengthen control within the robot industry value chain."