Hyundai Heavy Group-KT Join Hands to Develop Intelligent Robots

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Soyeon] Hyundai Heavy Industries Group and KT are accelerating digital innovation by jointly developing intelligent robots.

The two leading domestic manufacturing and telecommunications companies have decided to establish a practical cooperative relationship to enhance innovation and competitiveness, including creating a joint organization involving their top executives.

On the 16th, Hyundai Heavy Industries Group and KT announced that they signed an investment agreement at the KT Gwanghwamun Building in Seoul, attended by Jung Ki-sun, Vice Chairman of Hyundai Heavy Industries Holdings, and Koo Hyun-mo, President of KT.

KT will invest 50 billion KRW in Hyundai Robotics, a subsidiary of Hyundai Heavy Industries Holdings, securing a 10% stake.

The corporate value of Hyundai Robotics, which is expected to go public as early as 2022, was evaluated at 500 billion KRW.

KT is known to highly value Hyundai Robotics' competitiveness as the domestic market leader in industrial robots. Additionally, KT sees high growth potential in entering the service robot market in cooperation with Hyundai Robotics.

Hyundai Heavy Industries Holdings and KT also signed a business cooperation agreement between the groups to jointly respond to rapidly changing market conditions in artificial intelligence (AI), information and communication technology (ICT), and other areas.

A six-member cooperation committee, led by Vice Chairman Jung Ki-sun of Hyundai Heavy Industries Holdings and President Koo Hyun-mo of KT, will be formed to strengthen business cooperation and actively seek new opportunities.

The two companies agreed to collaborate particularly in the service robot sector used in hotels and restaurants, as well as in smart factories based on ICT.

In the service robot field, they will jointly develop intelligent robots and autonomous driving algorithms, with Hyundai Robotics developing the hardware and KT developing and applying the operational software.

Following industrial robots, they envision entering the service robot market to become a world-class robotics company.

In the smart factory sector, they will develop a joint operation management platform and provide Hyundai Robotics' robots and KT's wireless cloud services based on it.

The smart solution, equipped with differentiated production management and process analysis, is also planned to be applied to smart hospitals and smart logistics sectors.

Vice Chairman Jung Ki-sun said, "The competitiveness of manufacturers will be determined not simply by producing products but by reading market trends and adapting to changes," adding, "We hope that broad business cooperation with KT will help Hyundai Heavy Industries Group achieve digital innovation and secure competitiveness as a global leading company."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.