00:05South Korea may be the next big name in humanoid robots and almost nobody is
00:11talking about it because of course we're all busy watching the stunning progress
00:16of robotic startups in China. Korea doesn't build the most humanoid robots
00:21not yet but it builds the parts that make them work. South Korea has 1,220
00:28industrial robots for every 10,000 factory workers the highest robot density
00:34on earth according to the International Federation of Robotics and well over nine
00:40times the global average. Korea is in a league of its own and that matters more
00:46than you might think. Korean factories already know robots the infrastructure
00:51the workforce the culture of adoption they're all in place. GlobalSAC's
00:57research put the numbers behind this. By 2035 Korean companies could account for
01:03roughly 30 percent almost a third of global humanoid robot production either by
01:08building the robots themselves or by supplying the critical parts inside them
01:14like actuators. That's nearly one in three. Goldman Sachs research estimates that
01:21Korean parts and production lines could support around 74,000 humanoid robots or
01:27humanoid units by 2030 and 412,000 by 2035. The government is pushing hard too. It has set
01:35a target of a thousand humanoids a year by 2029 backed by about 700 billion won or roughly
01:43500 million dollars flowing through a national manufacturing alliance. But in the first place
01:48what makes Korea an interesting case to consider? We look no further than the car
01:55industry decades of building electric motors sensors and precision control
01:59systems for automobiles translate almost directly into robotics. Humanoid robots run
02:06on actuators the components that work like muscles and joints and those actuators
02:11share a lot of DNA with electric power steering and braking systems. Several Korean auto parts
02:17makers have already used that know-how to become leading non-Chinese suppliers of robot actuators.
02:23Plus, Korea's one more surprising strength, robot hands. Making a mechanical hand that moves
02:31like a human one is among the hardest puzzles in robotics. And Korea has an unusually deep bench
02:38of startups and listed companies building exactly that. A skill rooted in its decades of industrial
02:46gripper use. But what about the rest of Asia? Japan is the obvious comparison and the contrast is striking.
02:53Japan is the world's predominant robot manufacturer with deep humanoid heritage going back to Honda's
03:00ASIMO. Its robot density of 446 per 10,000 workers ranks fourth globally. And Japan is also mobilizing. Its Ministry
03:10of Economy, Trade and Industry has quadrupled its AI spending to $8 billion with a big slice earmarked for physical
03:20AI.
03:20A consortium called the Kyoto Humanoid Association, backed by Waseda University, among others, is targeting mass production by 2027.
03:30In May 2026, Japan Airlines even began a two-year trial of humanoid robots handling baggage at Tokyo's Haneda Airport.
03:39As for China, it still dominates actual deployments. Goldman estimates 10,000 to 15,000 humanoid robots were already working
03:47in China as of 2025, versus only hundreds in the US and Korea.
03:53That gap matters because deployed robots generate training data, and training data is the industry's biggest bottleneck.
04:00More robots mean more data, which means smarter robots, which means more robots.
04:06A self-reinforcing cycle, and China is already inside it.
04:10So, from a cursory look at Asia's humanoid race, you see China sprinting ahead on deployment, and South Korea quietly,
04:19methodically, positioning itself as the supplier everyone else needs.
04:23If Goldman Sachs is right, by 2035, Korean companies will be behind nearly one out of every three humanoid robots
04:31on Earth.
04:32Not the loudest name in the race, but possibly a most indispensable one.
