Government Launches Project to Localize Core Physical AI Technologies ... Leading Technology Development Initiative Begins

Kick-off Briefing for Physical AI Leading Technology Development Project

Development of Proprietary Models and Securing World Model Source Technology

34 Billion Won Invested Over Two Years with Aim for World-Class Technology

The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Institute for Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP) announced on June 9 that they held a kick-off briefing session for the 'Physical AI Leading Technology Development' project at the LG Science Park in Magok, Gangseo-gu, Seoul on June 9.

This project focuses on localizing the core technologies of physical artificial intelligence (AI), which have so far relied heavily on foreign solutions. Physical AI is one of the core missions of the "K-Moonshot" initiative, an AI-based national innovation project announced by the government earlier this year.

Ministry of Science and ICT logo. Ministry of Science and ICT

Until now, Korea's physical AI ecosystem has depended mostly on foreign simulation platforms. To overcome this, the Ministry of Science and ICT has launched this project with the goal of developing next-generation physical AI foundation models using domestic technology.

The project aims to secure proprietary world model source technology and to validate domestically developed simulator technology linked to it. A world model refers to a model that helps AI understand the real world and predict changes, thereby supporting AI learning and decision-making.

The project involves ten organizations from industry, academia, and research, including LG Electronics as the lead institution, as well as Maum AI, Holiday Robotics, Robotis, Crowdworks, Alchera, KT, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Seoul National University, and the Korea Information and Communication Technology Association.

Starting this year, the Ministry of Science and ICT will invest a total of 34 billion won over two years, aiming to achieve world-class performance in a short period through research and development (R&D). Specifically, the plan is to improve the world model’s real-world simulation performance and its transfer performance to robot foundation models, increasing the actual robot’s final task success rate by more than 20 percentage points compared to cases where the world model is not applied. This target exceeds the current global best standards.

To achieve this, the project will establish a demonstration pipeline, starting with rapid world model training and robot foundation model connectivity, followed by demonstration and performance evaluation, case analysis, and retraining. The plan is to enhance technological completeness through four rounds of iterative validation over the two-year period. In the final stage, the goal is to produce outcomes that can be commercialized through real-world demonstrations.

At the kick-off meeting, LG Electronics’ CLOi robot and Robotis’ AI Walker robot demonstrated human-robot interaction. Subsequently, LG Electronics presented specific research objectives and implementation plans, and each participating research institution announced its roles and detailed collaboration strategies.

Ryu Jemyoung, Second Vice Minister of Science and ICT, emphasized, "Physical AI is a national core technology that will transform Korea’s paradigm," adding, "Securing core infrastructure for physical AI independently is the starting point for Korea to become a global leader in physical AI."

He continued, "Since this project brings together large corporations, startups, universities, and research institutes with the highest level of domestic expertise, we expect to secure technologies with global competitiveness. The government will also mobilize all policy resources to actively support field research so that challenges and innovations can yield results quickly."

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