GoKawiilSamsung has created a new division called RX or Robotics eXperience for all of its robotics projects. Its strategy will be headed by Dongkun Lee, who joined Samsung in May as an Executive Vice President. Before he joined Samsung, Lee led Hyundai's robotics strategy, including Boston Dynamics'. Samsung CEO TM Roh himself will oversee the new division.
While RX will be based in Samsung's Seoul facilities in South Korea, Reuters says the company is also planning to build robotics research hubs in the US, China and Japan to tap into the expertise of locals. RX's establishment signals that the company, like many of peers in the tech industry, is getting serious about working on projects revolving around the development of physical AI. Hyundai recently purchased the rest of Boston Dynamics for the same reason. In February, a robotics company established by Alphabet to design robotics for manufacturing was folded into Google. And OpenAI is working on a series of devices meant to be the physical manifestation of ChatGPT, the first of which is believed to be a speaker.
According to Korea JoongAng Daily, Samsung intends to start manufacturing humanoid robots sometime this year. Roh previously announced that the company will invest 19 trillion Korean won ($13 billion) to develop manufacturing facilities in its Gumi, Korea site for the production of its humanoid robots, CNBC says.