At the CLEVI booth of an exhibitor at the first Industrial AI EXPO, held last September at COEX Magok in Gangseo-gu, Seoul, an official demonstrates the operation of a robot equipped with Physical AI. /Newsis
[Metro Newspaper] As ‘Physical AI’ is identified as the next stage of the generative artificial intelligence (AI) era, all capabilities—from the government to major IT companies such as Naver and academia, including Seoul National University—are being concentrated on it.
According to reporting by <Metro Economic Newspaper> on the 12th, Physical AI refers to an autonomous system that directly applies AI to the physical world, leading from ‘perception → understanding → action’. While conventional AI relies on digital inputs and outputs such as text and images, Physical AI detects the real physical environment through cameras, sensors and actuators, and responds in real time or performs tasks.
The reason Physical AI is attracting attention is the recognition that changes in real-world spaces such as robotics, autonomous vehicles and smart logistics are limited when addressed solely at AI’s ‘software level’. Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, also recently emphasized that “AI technology is now moving beyond the software level and entering a ‘Physical AI moment’ in which it directly interacts with the physical world.”
As Physical AI emerges as the next-generation technology of the AI era, the government has also adopted it as a key national strategy and begun making large-scale budget investments.
The government has allocated KRW 10.1 trillion—more than three times this year’s KRW 3.3 trillion—to advance into the ranks of the ‘world’s top three AI powers’. To this end, it plans to invest approximately KRW 6 trillion over the next five years in major industrial sectors such as robotics, automobiles and shipbuilding. In addition to the 260,000 NVIDIA GPUs secured at the recent South Korea–US summit, it also announced that the government would purchase an additional 15,000 high-performance GPUs, securing a total of 35,000 units ahead of schedule.
In his administrative speech to the National Assembly on the 4th, President Lee Jae-myung described next year’s budget proposal as “the Republic of Korea’s first budget proposal opening the AI era” and said, “To achieve the status of a leading Physical AI nation, we will leverage the country’s outstanding manufacturing capabilities and focus investment on key projects.” In step with these government efforts, domestic IT companies are also making aggressive investments to gain an early lead in the Physical AI market.
Naver, which surpassed quarterly revenue of 3 trillion won for the first time, has declared that it will strengthen its competitiveness in physical AI technology. Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon said at the third-quarter earnings announcement on the 5th, “We are confident that our physical AI technology is among the best in the world,” and stated that the company would become a leader in the operating system (OS) and control platform sector, which accounts for approximately 39% of the global robotics market.
To achieve this, Naver expects that it will need to invest more than 1 trillion won in GPUs alone next year. Its core technologies are the robot cloud ‘ARC’ and the ultra-precise 3D digital twin ‘ALIKE’.
CEO Choi emphasized, “‘ARC’ is a standard OS platform that integrates and manages various robots, aiming to serve as the ‘Windows’ or ‘Android’ of the robotics industry,” adding, “We will secure new growth momentum through this technology.”
Momentum is also building in academia to support physical AI innovation. Seoul National University will officially launch the Seoul National University Robotics Institute (SNU RI), a research institute specializing in physical AI, next month to secure next-generation AI talent. SNU RI will be led by distinguished scholars from the global robotics community, including Professor Jongwoo Park (former president of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society) and Professor Kyujin Cho (incoming president of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society).
The primary goal is to retain outstanding talent that would otherwise leave the country. Professor Cho emphasized, “We need to establish a research institute that goes beyond basic research and delivers technology demonstrations or commercialization outcomes capable of attracting global attention.” To this end, SNU RI will operate as an “open hub” where academia and industry join forces, with AI startup representatives and external experts mentoring students and helping them launch businesses.
Ha Jung-woo, Senior Secretary for AI Future Planning at the Office of the President, said, “To make this new field called physical AI a success, we need not only GPUs, data and algorithms, but also manufacturing plants, industrial environments and the physical world,” adding, “Korea has laid the groundwork to create a new AI environment by possessing both manufacturing facilities and software capabilities.”
Metro Newspaper Reporter Kim Seo-hyun [email protected]
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Source: Metro Newspaper (Reporter Kim Seo-hyun) | https://www.metroseoul.co.kr/article/20251112500345