SEOUL: South Korea's science ministry has stated that it will run a competition among domestically developed humanoid robots and select a national-team platform from the field, concentrating support on chosen hardware rather than spreading it across the industry.  

The Ministry of Science and ICT set out the plan at a meeting at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology in Seoul, held to collect comments from industry, academic, and research experts on a draft roadmap for the K-Moonshot AI Humanoid Mission.  

The new program is set to be called the Next-X Humanoid Challenge.   

South Korean humanoid developers will be able to apply to take part in the program. Those chosen will get funding, and the ministry will eventually pick one platform to become the country's official national team. Seoul Economic Daily reported the challenge starts next year; Digital Daily reported the final selection would come from 2027.  

South Korea's science ministry says it wants to build a world-leading humanoid robot platform within three years, one that covers the whole process: the AI powering the robot, the parts that make it up, and everything from testing to mass production. 

The humanoid mission is one of 12 national missions under K-Moonshot, a program using AI-based research and development to attack problems the government has designated as strategic.   

Work on the humanoid mission earlier this year with the Korea Institute of Science and Technology as the lead organization, joined by LG Electronics, LG AI Research, LG Energy Solution, Robostar, and Wirobotics, along with Seoul National University, KAIST, Korea University, and Kyung Hee University.  

Yeo Joon-gu, the program director running the mission, presented the draft and said the wave after AI will be physical intelligence that decides and moves on its own, with humanoids as its core platform. He said South Korea should build a technologically sovereign K-humanoid as a national strategic asset, framing it as a response to population decline.  

No budget has been estimated for the challenge. Besides, the criteria on which the robots would be judged on or the reward a selected platform would receive have also not been disclosed. Those details would follow the ministers' meeting.