POSCO Group said on the 7th it will invest a total of 7 billion won in Brils, a domestic robot automation solution specialist.
The investment consists of 5 billion won from the POSCO Holdings strategic fund and 2 billion won from POSCO's corporate venture capital (CVC) fund.
With this investment, POSCO Group plans to combine its accumulated manufacturing site experience and technical know-how with Brils' robot design and control capabilities.
The companies also plan to jointly develop an automation operating system and build an "intelligence factory (a plant that establishes an intelligent autonomous manufacturing process through collaboration among people, artificial intelligence, and robots)."
POSCO Group plans to first apply customized robots to manual processes with high labor intensity or high accident risk to improve safety at manufacturing sites while securing productivity.
So far, POSCO Group has invested a total of 19 billion won in promising robot corporations through venture funds and POSCO Technology Investment, including: ◇ the quadruped robot "Aidin Robotics" ◇ the robot hand specialist "Tesollo" ◇ the collaborative robot "Neuromeka" ◇ the industrial Humanoid Robot "Persona AI."
POSCO Group also plans to expand the introduction of robot- and AI-based autonomous processes to spread "intelligent factories" at manufacturing sites and further accelerate the groupwide artificial intelligence transformation (AX).
Brils is a domestic automation solution specialist established in 2015. It has demonstrated its technology by applying automation solutions to production sites of major conglomerates such as Hyundai Motor and SK ecoplant, and, based on this growth potential, is pursuing a KOSDAQ listing within the year.