LG ramps up humanoid robot parts as supply race heat up

LG Electronics and LG Innotek said they are building manufacturing capacity to supply key components for humanoid robots.

LG Electronics CEO Lyu Jae-cheol said the company plans to set up mass production for its Axium actuator line by the end of this year and called 2026 the inaugural year of its humanoid robotics business by selling parts to global robot makers.

LG’s CLOiD home robot will move into proof-of-concept deployments next year.

LG Innotek CEO Moon Hyuk-soo said it is developing advanced sensing model and expects large-scale output in 2027 to 2028 depending on client timelines, as Korean conglomerates race to secure positions in the humanoid robot supply chain.

🔗 Source: Korea Herald

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

LG’s robot strategy targets the high-margin core of the supply chain

LG plans to mass-produce actuators, the motorized joints that move a robot’s limbs, and sell them to global robot makers instead of betting only on finished humanoid robots in a busy market 1.
Actuators can make up over 40% of total production cost, which gives LG a path to better margins and more influence with manufacturers that rely on a steady parts supply 1.
LG brings experience from building direct-drive motors for home appliances, which can carry over into faster scale-up and tighter quality control for actuator manufacturing 2.

Humanoid hardware is shifting from custom prototypes to a standardized supply chain

LG’s move into mass-market actuators marks a shift away from bespoke research prototypes toward a standardized supply chain for core hardware like joints 1.
This manufacturing shift helps explain why robot costs have dropped, with the bill of materials (the total cost of a robot’s components) for some models falling from roughly $250,000 in 2022 to below $50,000 in 2025 3.
As more suppliers produce similar hardware, parts like actuators could become commodities, which pushes competition toward AI software, system integration (making the parts work together reliably), and fleet management (operating and updating many robots in the field) 4.