[DigitalToday reporter Chi-gyu Hwang] Big tech companies are speeding up their moves into so-called physical AI, which applies AI in the real world such as robots, cars and drones. These companies see the physical AI market as smaller than AI chatbots for now, but with high potential, and are actively moving to secure an early lead.

Nvidia is also taking increasingly bold steps in physical AI areas such as robots, cars and drones, beyond chips for AI training. Physical AI accounts for a small share of Nvidia's total revenue, but expectations are high at the company level. CEO Jensen Huang said the physical AI business would grow 10-fold within the next 10 years. Amazon Web Services (AWS) unveiled an integrated cloud-edge solution for customers developing physical AI systems. SoftBank is said to be discussing a plan to acquire a majority stake in 1X Technologies, a humanoid robot developer that received investment from OpenAI.

If the investment goes through, SoftBank would be able to strengthen its robotics capabilities and 1X Technologies would secure the funding needed to scale home soft-body robots, the report said. Anthropic unveiled a new interface standard called the Model Hardware Standard (MHS) to make it easier for AI agents to operate machines and communicate with them. Chinese electric vehicle maker Xpeng (XPEV) is accelerating plans to expand its humanoid robot business by raising $900 million (about 1.25 trillion won) with its robotics subsidiary Dogotix. Robotics AI startup Generalist AI raised an additional $200 million in funding.

Nvidia steps up offensive in physical AI for robots and cars, actively cooperates with Chinese companies AWS expands physical AI push, builds operating foundation linking cloud and edge SoftBank seeks to acquire robot company 1X Technologies backed by OpenAI Anthropic expands into physical AI, unveils MHS, a hardware version of MCP Xpeng raises 1.25 trillion won for humanoid mass production, competition with Tesla in physical AI begins in earnest Robotics AI startup Generalist raises $200 million in funding

Moves by South Korean companies into physical AI are also active.

Physical AI robotics company XYZ was selected for Global TIPS with a project jointly 추진 with GTGO, which operates the restaurant brand GOPIZZA, to develop physical AI-based retail RX and open global markets. Woori Bank will provide about 1 trillion won in financial support for future strategic industries, including semiconductors, physical AI and AI data centres, with the Korea Technology Finance Corporation. Democratic Party lawmaker Jun-ho Han (한준호) said he would shift the current regulatory framework in a more flexible direction to promote the physical AI industry and speed up the processing of related legislation. Physical AI company Makinarocks is moving to cooperate on applying AI-based equipment control optimisation technology at Samsung Display's Vietnam plant. Physical AI company CarbonSix signed a memorandum of understanding with robot safety technology company Safetics centred on applying physical AI to mass production at manufacturing sites.

GTGO and XYZ push to develop unmanned restaurant stores based on physical AI Woori Bank and KOTEC to supply 1 trillion won for semiconductors, physical AI and AI data centres Jun-ho Han: "Will speed up processing of physical AI legislation," calls for shift to negative regulation Makinarocks to apply AI control technology at Samsung Display's Vietnam plant CarbonSix joins hands with Safetics to apply physical AI to manufacturing mass production [D2 People] "For physical AI, trustworthy hardware is key ... demand starts with manufacturing"

Investment enthusiasm for physical AI is strong, but there are still observations that more time is needed before robots can reliably perform tasks that generate profit in real workplaces. A lack of high-quality training data and a failure to secure reliability sufficient for commercial use are cited as key bottlenecks facing the industry.

Cool-headed reality amid humanoid boom ... robot AI is still "pre-ChatGPT"

SK Telecom, KT and a Kakao consortium were selected as operators of the "AI for Everyone" project, which builds AI services for all citizens. Each consortium will launch AI services for the public within the year by leveraging the strengths of the lead institution.

"AI for Everyone" to launch within the year, led by SKT, KT and Kakao SKT bets on action-based AI with "AI for Everyone," taking over everyday tasks "Bringing homegrown AI into daily life" ... KT unveils blueprint for "AI for Everyone" Kakao selected to run "AI for Everyone," beta release in September Telecoms take charge of "AI for 50 million people," highlighting large-scale infrastructure capabilities

The landscape around local AI, which runs AI models on high-performance PCs rather than the cloud, continues to expand.

Apple unveiled new Mac mini and Mac Studio models with improved AI performance. Perplexity unveiled a local version of its AI agent platform "Computer" called "Portable Computer." Nvidia introduced the entry-level edge robotics AI computer Jetson Orin Nano 2. Jae-wook Jung (정재욱), a field product marketing director at Dell Technologies Korea, repeatedly emphasised at the "Dell Technologies Forum 2026" that the spread of agentic AI will be a catalyst for increasing the weight PCs carry in corporate AI infrastructure.

Apple unveils new Mac mini and Mac Studio, "can run 1 trillion-parameter AI models" Perplexity unveils "Portable Computer," steps up broad offensive in local AI agent platforms Nvidia unveils Jetson Orin Nano 2 robotics computer, boosts edge AI mainstreaming "In AI infrastructure market, desktop PCs are playing a bigger role as agentic AI spreads"

It also summarised moves by companies in South Korea and abroad around AI.

OpenAI will end its contract to provide AI models to the AI coding service Cursor. As a result, existing OpenAI models will be fully removed from the Cursor platform on Nov. 12.

OpenAI parts ways with Cursor, stops providing AI models

Anthropic will soon roll out its latest large language models, including Sonnet 5 and Opus 5, in the AWS Seoul region and accelerate its push into South Korea's enterprise market. Anthropic will also actively target South Korea's financial sector in cooperation with AWS.

"Anthropic's latest AI models land in AWS Seoul region ... financial sector push also gains traction"

Google Cloud will launch Gemini Enterprise, specialised for financial services and the legal industry, as packaged solutions for each sector.

Google Cloud expands industry-specific AI, launches Gemini Enterprise specialised for finance and legal industries

Salesforce and Anthropic expanded their strategic cooperation and unveiled a new plugin called ClaudeForce that lets sales staff directly use key data in Anthropic's chatbot Claude. Salesforce is actively targeting the enterprise harness market. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said he would unveil a large lineup of the enterprise harness "AIforce" at the annual Dreamforce conference in September.

Salesforce targets enterprise AI harness with "AIforce" Salesforce and Anthropic unveil ClaudeForce, enabling direct use of sales data in Claude

Cohere unveiled its document parsing AI model Parse 5. The company said it focused on price-performance rather than accuracy. AI-based development platform company OutSystems will expand its financial-sector "Agentic Industry Solutions" portfolio to support advanced bank personal loan operations. Thomson Reuters launched its own large language model "Thomson" specialised for legal work.

Cohere unveils document parsing AI Parse 5, focuses on price-performance OutSystems expands finance agentic industry solutions portfolio Thomson Reuters launches its own AI model for legal work

It is also notable that South Korean AI startups have attracted large-scale investments. AI service platform company Wrtn Technologies raised 100 billion won in a Series C investment round. AI agent startup Liner raised 50 billion won in a Series C round led by LB Investment.

Wrtn raises 100 billion won in Series C funding, valued at 1 trillion won Liner raises 50 billion won in Series C funding, expands AI search and agent capabilities

Recent signs suggest a trend of selling related industry stocks over concerns about a "SaaSpocalypse," in which existing enterprise software could weaken or disappear due to AI, is easing. In this context, headless is emerging as a major variable in enterprise software, drawing attention.

In B2B SaaS, headless emerges as major variable after SaaSpocalypse