"Preparing an Environment Where Anyone Can Build Robots... Robot Coffee Delivery at Naver Building by Year-End"

Lecture by Suk Sangok, CEO of Naver Labs

On October 16, Naver announced that it is developing a robotics artificial intelligence (AI) foundation model to expand the capabilities of robots and is preparing an environment where anyone can create robot services through a web-based operating system (OS).

Suk Sangok, CEO of Naver Labs

Suk Sangok, CEO of Naver Labs, made this announcement during a lecture titled "Digital Twin, AI, and Robots for Future Cities" at the Digital Insight Forum hosted by the Korea Association for ICT Promotion (KAIT) at the Josun Palace Seoul Gangnam on the same day.

Suk stated, "In future cities, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of robots will move organically, connecting people and spaces," and introduced, "Naver is preparing an environment where the eyes and brains for all robots are built in the cloud."

He continued, "Since 2019, we have been collaborating with MIT and the industry to create small-sized humanoids, and identical robots have actually been produced," adding, "Starting at the end of this year, these robots will begin operating inside the Naver 1784 building."

He also explained, "We are currently redesigning the robot, and from next year, we plan to provide real services such as delivering lunch boxes or coffee together with Rookie, Naver's delivery robot."

The robot operates in conjunction with Naver's robot cloud platform 'ARC' and the web-based robot operating system 'ARC Mind.'

Suk explained, "ARC is a concept in which the robot's brain is uploaded to the cloud, allowing robots to connect to cloud intelligence with ultra-low latency via a 5G dedicated network. Even small robots can utilize the cloud as their brain if they are equipped with a camera, motor, and 5G module."

Additionally, Suk announced plans to release a new model of the 3D reconstruction AI model, Duster, next month.

He said, "We plan to unveil Duster 2 next month, and this version features much more accurate geometry, as well as capabilities for image segmentation and human recognition."

Based on these technologies, Naver plans to commercialize indoor augmented reality (AR) navigation by the end of this month. Suk explained, "With just a single photo, the system can recognize locations and provide navigation indoors, even in areas where the Global Positioning System (GPS) signal does not reach."