The field that uses robots the most in Korea is the industry. According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), the global average density of industrial robots is only 141 units as of 2021, but Korea ranks first in the world with 1,000 units per 10,000 workers. In the past, Korea's robot industry was focused on manufacturing and automation equipment. However, now 'collaborative robots' that work together in the workplace have emerged and are drawing the attention of the industry. We have entered an era where we cannot guarantee our future food unless we secure the robot industry. Robot technology is becoming a national competitiveness. 'Korean Startups Open the Robot Era' Part 2 [Robots, Leading the Industry] covers robots and new technologies that are leading the changing future industry, and domestic startups that are drawing a blueprint for the future through them. ■ Autonomous robots that deliver during the day and patrol at night Delivery robots are now fully active on the streets. This is because the 'Act on the Promotion of the Development and Distribution of Intelligent Robots' was revised in November of last year, allowing delivery anytime, anywhere, regardless of location. The global delivery robot market size is expected to grow by an average of 35% per year and reach approximately KRW 1.28 trillion by 2026. The autonomous robot startup that the production team visited was introduced by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang in the 2024 Computex keynote speech as “the next wave of AI, the future of robotics,” and developed this robot with the goal of revolutionizing the delivery industry. This robot not only delivers, but has also recently been introduced as an outdoor robot on a university campus to patrol. This robot can drive autonomously regardless of day or night, and can patrol blind spots that are difficult to monitor with CCTV. “We didn’t use commercial products. This robot was made by us. We always stayed up all night and developed it while sleeping on the second floor of a bed in the company. We also met with investors for more than 6 months and showed them the process of creating an item.” Interview with Lee Sang-min, CEO of an autonomous robot startup ■ Robots active in various industrial sites A domestic startup that has developed a robot that removes and cleans marine life attached to a ship for the first time in the world is attracting global attention. As international regulations on carbon emissions are applied to ships, the importance of hull cleaning has been highlighted. The biggest strengths of this robot are its safety and efficiency. This robot can clean a wide hull that would take more than a month for a person to clean in just 8 hours. This innovative technology is considered a groundbreaking technology that reduces the maintenance costs of ships and ensures the safety of workers. The CEO of this company was working in the asset management industry, but while yachting as a hobby, he learned that barnacles attached to ships reduce the speed of ships by a quarter, which led to the development of hull cleaning robots. The startup, which started in a small office of about 6 pyeong, has now grown into the world's first and best underwater hull cleaning robot technology startup. There are also startups that have developed robots that work with workers in the logistics industry as well as the marine industry. The representative collaborative robot here has an autonomous driving function, so it finds the location of various items in order and moves them. Before the introduction of the robot, workers had to pull carts and find products themselves, which took a lot of time and was labor-intensive. However, since the introduction of collaborative robots, the intensity of workers’ labor has been reduced by more than half, and productivity has greatly improved. The collaborative robot market is expected to exceed 5 billion dollars, or about 6 trillion won in our currency, next year. “(Collaborative robots) are robots developed to save people from doing difficult work. The population has been decreasing recently. It is becoming difficult to gather manpower that can do difficult work, especially in rural areas. So I think the direction of robot automation is a natural trend of the times.” Interview with an employee of a collaborative robot startup ■ Humanoid robot market expected to reach 51 trillion by 2035 A Korean robot company that develops industrial robots based on world-class humanoid robot technology. Recently, the company is focusing on the final stages of research to domestically produce quadruped robots that are attracting attention worldwide. In particular, Professor Oh Jun-ho, who led the research on the Hubo robot, the world’s second bipedal robot and winner of the 2015 DARPA Robot Challenge, is working with the company as its CTO to accelerate technology development. The company aims to internalize technology and parts. This is because I believ