Chung Dae-jin, Chairman of the Korea Automobile & Mobility Industry Association
The United States has taken its technological containment of China one step further. After telecommunications equipment, drones and connected cars, Chinese-made humanoid robots have now been added to the list of import restrictions. This may look like a trade measure aimed at a single industry, but at its core it is a contest for leadership over future advanced industries. The U.S. has begun to view automobiles, robots and artificial intelligence not as separate industries but as a single “physical AI” ecosystem.
The strategies of global automakers reflect this shift. Tesla is betting its future on the humanoid “Optimus,” beyond electric vehicles. Elon Musk has declared that Optimus will eventually account for most of Tesla’s corporate value. Hyundai Motor Group (005380.KS) has also acquired a 100% stake in Boston Dynamics and is accelerating the commercialization of “Atlas.” It plans to build a robot production hub in Saemangeum and to deploy Atlas in the production process at its Metaplant in Georgia. The second act of the auto industry has, in effect, begun.
Automobiles and humanoids are closer industries than one might think. Much of their core technology and supply chains overlap, from drive motors, reducers, batteries and power semiconductors to sensors and software. If a car is a robot that runs on wheels, a humanoid can be described as a car that walks on two legs. The design, mass-production and quality-control capabilities the auto industry has accumulated over decades will remain a powerful competitive strength in the humanoid era.
An even bigger change has already begun on the factory floor. Some Chinese auto plants have automated most of their production processes with robots and automated guided vehicles, operating at a level close to a “dark factory” that runs without people. Once humanoids are deployed in earnest, automation will spread quickly even into areas that once required human hands, such as assembly, transport and inspection. A cycle also becomes possible in which humanoids build cars, and the auto industry’s mass-production system in turn spreads more humanoids.
The rules of market competition will change as well. In the past, the company that made better cars was the winner. Going forward, the company with superior AI and robots is likely to lead even the automobile market. The AI and control technologies accumulated in developing humanoids advance autonomous driving, while automakers’ mass-production capabilities lower the production cost of robots. It is a virtuous cycle in which cars and robots raise each other’s competitiveness.
There are, of course, hurdles to overcome. It will take time before robots establish themselves as a genuinely profitable business, and there are concerns about employment stability. But these are reasons to carefully calibrate the pace and manner of commercialization, not grounds to deny the direction of change itself. What is needed is the wisdom to advance technological maturity and social acceptance together.
In the coming humanoid era, the opportunity is open to us. Few countries possess world-class capabilities in automobiles, batteries, semiconductors and AI all at once. This combination is an important asset with which South Korea can lead the era of convergence between automobiles and robots. Yet it will be difficult to seize the opportunity by treating automobiles and robots as separate industries. Both the government and companies need a strategy that ties together research and development, demonstration, regulatory innovation, core-component supply chains and talent development. In particular, now is a crucial time to secure the connecting links of the industrial ecosystem before the technology gap becomes entrenched.
The auto industry is now expanding its territory from wheels to two legs. The winners ahead will not only be companies that make many cars, but those that build superior humanoids and use those humanoids to produce more competitive cars. In the second act of the auto industry, the humanoid era, we must be the protagonists.