LG Electronics joins S Korea's humanoid AI push

South korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT said on May 18 it will invest 50.4 billion won (US$33.5 million) over five years to develop core technologies for AI humanoid robots.

The program, led by Korea Institute of Science and Technology through 2030, will involve universities and technology companies.

LG Electronics and Seoul-based wearable robot startup WIRobotics will build robot platforms and humanoid models for mass production.

Universities and LG AI Research will develop an AI model for robots to interpret visual, physical, verbal, and behavioral data.

The project will also use solid-state batteries from LG Energy Solution.

The ministry said robots developed under the program will be tested in hospitals and nursing facilities for long-term and complex care tasks.

🔗 Source: Yonhap

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

LG’s humanoid project fits into a wider robotics effort

This government-backed effort sits within a broader robotics drive across LG Group affiliates, including LG CNS’s robot transformation, or RX, strategy 1.
LG CNS already uses robots in logistics centers for Gmarket, a South Korean ecommerce company, plus battery materials plants for LG Chem, LG Group’s chemicals affiliate 1.
As of the fourth quarter of 2025, LG CNS held nearly 1.7 trillion won (US$1.13 billion) in cash and cash equivalents, giving it room for more investments in robotics companies 1.
LG Electronics is working on robots for the home, which it sees as the “ultimate unstructured environment” because daily conditions change so often 2.
The healthcare effort gives LG Electronics a place to build and test robots in hospitals and nursing facilities, where long-term care tasks unfold in another hard-to-predict setting.

AI in complex care settings will decide whether the project works

Robots in hospitals and nursing homes must move through changing real-world spaces, the same hurdle LG Electronics faces in home robotics 2.
The project aims to read visual data plus physical, verbal, and behavioral cues so robots can move past simple tasks and grasp context.
That step brings concerns about data privacy and algorithmic bias, meaning systematic errors in AI systems that can produce unfair outcomes, a subject widely discussed in academic literature on AI and society 3.
The initiative could become a test case for how robots handle sensitive data in care settings, and for how institutions weigh the risks against the benefits 3.