As China is rapidly taking over the global Humanoid Robot market, a claim emerged that it is urgent to build a physical artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem tailored to Korea's industrial sites and to create an institutional environment where "money-making AI robot corporations" can emerge. Even though Korea records the world's No. 1 robot density, there are no domestic corporations holding the lead in the industrial robot market, and a series of assessments said securing demonstration data and regulatory innovation are the keys to future competitiveness.
At the policy debate "Advances in robot technology in the physical AI era and the future of Korean industry," held at the National Assembly Members' Office Building in Yeouido, Seoul, on the 24th, Choi Rigun, managing director at Hyundai Motor Robotics Lab, said, "The reason Chinese robot technology is ahead is that they actually made products, sold them, and accumulated mass-production experience to check a year later where things break." He added, "In contrast, domestic startups lack real manufacturing and mass-production experience, so they struggle to set product specifications and quality standards." The point is that the lack of on-site demonstration experience is widening the robot gap with China and the United States.
According to the International Federation of Robotics, Korea has the world's highest industrial robot density at 1,220 units per 10,000 workers, but it is hard to find corporations that actually lead the robot market. Park Dong-il, head of the Advanced Robotics Research Center at the Korea Institute of Machinery & Materials (KIMM), said, "The use of robots in domestic manufacturing has been high for a long time, but if you look at the global industrial robot market share, there are no domestic robot corporations at all," and added, "In a market dominated mostly by Japanese, U.S., and Chinese corporations, it is urgent to secure a domestic robot ecosystem."
Experts pointed to the securing of on-site demonstration data and the reduction of "robot labor cost (a portmanteau of robot and labor cost)" as the core factors that will determine success or failure in the physical AI era. Lee Gyubin, director of the GIST Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, said, "In the past, advanced countries transferred manufacturing facilities overseas due to high labor costs, but going forward, how well a country controls low robot labor cost will determine its future competitiveness." Lee added, "Just as Tesla launched its own vehicles, gathered driving data, and came to lead the Autonomous Driving market, our corporations must launch AI robot products, accumulate data in industrial sites, and be provided with an environment where they can actually make money."
They agreed that an outdated regulatory environment is becoming a barrier to this kind of data-driven innovation. Lee said, "If a Tesla-like business had been attempted domestically, it would have been ousted from the market due to restrictions on allowing autonomous operation, limits on uploading driving footage, and unclear liability rules." He emphasized, "The essence of the bottleneck is data, and regulations must change in a way that enables it." He said, "Only when corporations that make a lot of money in the robot business emerge will talent naturally gather, so before emphasizing training talent, we must first build an environment where money-making robot corporations can emerge."
Calls continued for practical support measures and improvements to research regulations to create an initial market. Choi said, "There is an opinion in the industry that if there were subsidies for robots, it would help expand the ecosystem, and if local or central governments directly used robots, domestic corporations would gain demand sources, which would aid technology development." Lee pointed out that research and development (R&D) practices out of step with the times are weakening robot technology competitiveness. Lee said, "In the United States and China, numerous researchers converge on key fields and compete on the same topics, but in Korea, during national R&D planning, the so-called 'redundancy review,' ostensibly to prevent budget overlap, excludes research in the same field, causing us to fall behind advanced countries."