South Korea's National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy Committee held an industry meeting on humanoid robots on June 9 with domestic robot and AI companies and academic experts.

The National AI Strategy Committee set up a Humanoid Group within its Industry AX and Ecosystem subcommittee on April 21. Professor Byung-tak Jang (장병탁) of Seoul National University serves as group leader. The group comprises 14 industry and academic experts from Roboteq, Doosan Robotics, POSCO and LG Electronics, among others.

The meeting discussed ways to secure domestic technological sovereignty and accelerate adoption in manufacturing and service workplaces as global big tech and overseas companies including China's Agibot compete on technology.

Private-sector members presented six policy tasks that relevant ministries including the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Ministry of National Defense should pursue: proactive government support and expanded industry investment; pilot projects and testbed demonstrations through identifying demand in the public sector; priority support for short, intensive research and development in two-year cycles, and expanded tax credits and subsidies; self-reliance in a full-stack platform combining hardware and AI software; fostering domestically produced edge AI chips and investment in key materials, components and equipment; and training field-tailored, hands-on engineers.

The National AI Strategy Committee delivered opinions gathered and policy recommendations from the meeting to the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Ministry of National Defense, among others. It plans to continue identifying policy recommendations in future meetings and deliver them to ministries.

Jang said humanoids were the culmination of "physical AI" in which AI takes on a physical form, making independent ecosystem self-reliance more important than anything else. He said he would support South Korea's leap to become a hub of the global humanoid ecosystem by ensuring private-sector recommendations were organically reflected in each ministry's policies.