Samsung Electronics has significantly expanded its research and development (R&D) workforce and investment to cultivate its robotics business as a future core growth engine. Subsidiary Rainbow Robotics increased its R&D staff by 63% in one year, while first-half R&D spending rose 64%, accelerating the roadmap toward humanoid mass production.<\/p>\n
According to industry sources on the 26th, Rainbow Robotics has added approximately 40 R&D personnel over the past year. As of the end of June, R&D staff totaled 114, up roughly 63% from 70 a year earlier. The company is credited with strengthening its research organization’s competitiveness by securing talent across master’s, doctoral, and bachelor’s degree levels.<\/p>\n
Investment has also grown sharply. Rainbow Robotics’ first-half R&D expenditure this year was approximately 6.37 billion won (approximately $4.6 million), up 64% from 3.88 billion won (approximately $2.8 million) in the same period last year. The company is combining workforce expansion with investment to focus on next-generation robot technology development.<\/p>\n
Samsung Electronics last month established the “RX Business Promotion Office” reporting directly to Roh Tae-moon, CEO and head of the Device eXperience (DX) Division, declaring a full-scale push into the robotics business. The RX Business Promotion Office is responsible for consolidating company-wide robotics capabilities and technologies, overseeing everything from mid- to long-term strategy formulation to core technology development and commercialization. The reorganization reflects a determination to build robotics into a core pillar of the company’s future business portfolio.<\/p>\n
Samsung Electronics is also recruiting experienced foreign R&D personnel in its DX Division. The RX Business Promotion Office is placing particular emphasis on securing “robotic hand” technology. Since precise manipulation capability is essential for humanoids to perform diverse tasks like humans, robotic hands are considered a key technology that will determine commercialization. The current recruitment drive focuses on securing talent responsible for manipulation control technology for robotic hand control, tactile sensing solution development, and robotic hand performance enhancement.<\/p>\n
Samsung Electronics is pursuing a strategy of validating robot technology in manufacturing sites before gradually expanding application areas. The company is also concentrating on securing talent in vision-based 3D recognition, robot motors and actuators, and industrial robot motion technology, as well as personnel who can collect and build robot learning data in manufacturing environments and develop related algorithms.<\/p>\n
Core Component Internalization and M&A Strategy<\/p>\n
Rainbow Robotics is focusing on developing actuators and production technology for humanoids. The company is producing prototypes of core components for high-output quasi-direct drive (QDD) actuators, which are critical joint components that enable humanoids to walk and run like humans while absorbing impact. With basic performance verification completed, the company is pursuing technology internalization by developing and producing core humanoid drive components in-house rather than sourcing them externally. Internalizing the design and production of core drive components can lower external procurement costs and enhance humanoid mass-production competitiveness.<\/p>\n
The ultimate goal is to develop agile bipedal humanoids capable of performing precise tasks in industrial settings. The vision is to expand humanoid applications to tasks that existing fixed robots or mobile platforms have struggled to perform.<\/p>\n
Samsung Electronics is reportedly reviewing a strategy to supplement core technologies it lacks internally through additional mergers and acquisitions (M&A). To realize physical AI, software capabilities such as vision AI and simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) \u2014 which enable robots to perceive their surroundings and autonomously make decisions and move \u2014 are critical. How the company combines hardware with AI and software capabilities, the “brain” of the system, is expected to be a key challenge. As a result, promising overseas robot AI startups are expected to be top-priority M&A candidates.<\/p>\n
Bipedal Locomotion Challenges… “Humanoids Walking on Icy Roads Are Premature”<\/p>\n
As Samsung Electronics pushes forward with humanoid mass production, assessments indicate that significant technical challenges remain. Dr. Jung Dong-hwi of Samsung Electronics noted at the “Physical AI Forum 2026” held at Seoul National University on the 25th: “Due to limited sensors and a low center of gravity, it remains difficult for humanoids to walk on icy or rainy roads.”<\/p>\n
He identified “spatial intelligence” as a key technology humanoids must secure to move like humans, and highlighted technical challenges unique to humanoids that distinguish them from existing mobile robots. Spatial intelligence is a robot’s ability to convert space into data and perceive it \u2014 either by converting indoor environments into 2D images processed numerically, or by using high-resolution sensors such as LiDAR to understand space in 3D.<\/p>\n
He cited accurate state estimation as the first challenge. “In mobile robots, cameras and sensors are mounted on the lower body, so the sensors and center of gravity essentially move as one body. But in humanoids, the center of gravity is located at the pelvis while sensors are on the head, separating them,” he explained. “Because the head and pelvis move continuously in real time during walking, all of this movement must be factored into position calculations, making it difficult to obtain accurate position values.”<\/p>\n
The second problem is sensor occlusion. Designs that cover head-mounted sensors with black glass significantly reduce the amount of sensor information that can be acquired. The need to fit sensors into narrow spaces like the head also limits the number of sensors that can be mounted. Walking control itself is also highly challenging. Moving on two legs alone, with the center of gravity positioned low, makes stable walking difficult. This is why conditions like icy or rainy roads pose particular difficulty.<\/p>\n
Dr. Jung said: “Humanoids still need to overcome many technical difficulties to walk like humans, but humanoids will become a prominent research field in robotics over the next decade. As technology advances, ‘androids’ \u2014 humanoids indistinguishable from humans, as depicted in the movie ‘Terminator’ \u2014 will emerge as a major concept.”<\/p>\n
Market Impact and Outlook<\/p>\n
Samsung Electronics’ robotics expansion comes amid intensifying global humanoid competition. With U.S. companies leading the humanoid commercialization race \u2014 Tesla unveiling Optimus and Figure AI introducing Figure 02 \u2014 Samsung Electronics is seen as mounting a catch-up effort by combining its hardware capabilities with AI and software.<\/p>\n
In particular, if Rainbow Robotics’ HUBO platform is combined with Samsung Electronics’ manufacturing capabilities and AI technology, the company is expected to secure competitiveness in the industrial humanoid market. However, given that bipedal locomotion technical challenges remain unresolved, some observers suggest that gradual introduction in specific areas such as manufacturing sites will be more realistic than full commercialization in the short term.<\/p>\n
An industry source said: “Samsung Electronics increasing R&D personnel and investment simultaneously is evidence that the company views the robotics business not merely as a future growth area but as a business capable of actual monetization. If core component internalization and M&A strategies align, the humanoid mass-production timeline could be moved up earlier than expected.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Samsung Electronics has significantly expanded its research and development (R&D) workforce and investment to cultivate its robotics business…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[67644,4298,67642,1223,67643,6941,22234,49273,127,276],"class_list":["post-132787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-samsung-electronics","tag-hubo","tag-humanoid","tag-jung-dong-hwi","tag-physical-ai","tag-qdd-actuator","tag-rainbow-robotics","tag-roh-tae-moon","tag-rx-business-promotion-office","tag-samsung","tag-samsung-electronics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}