The government has eased safety rules written for stationary industrial robots, clearing the way for humanoid robots to move onto factory floors in earnest. Twenty humanoids will work in the same space as people, handling tasks from cleaning semiconductor components to placing auto body parts and stacking shipbuilding materials.
The Ministry of Trade and Industry held the sixth meeting of its Industrial Convergence Regulatory Sandbox Committee for 2026 on the 13th, reviewing regulatory exemptions in artificial intelligence, robotics and energy, according to government officials on the 14th. The committee granted a demonstration exemption to Robros, a domestic robot maker developing bipedal humanoids, for its project deploying humanoid robots at semiconductor, automotive, shipbuilding and logistics sites.
Under the pilot, 20 of Robros' AI-powered bipedal humanoids will be deployed at Nepes, Sungwoo Hitech, HD Hyundai Samho and Delivery Lab. The robots will move through spaces shared with or adjacent to human workers, recognizing their surroundings and picking up objects to carry and stack.
Their duties go beyond simple transport. At Nepes, the robots will remove contaminants from circular components used in semiconductor back-end packaging. At Sungwoo Hitech, they will place auto body parts in designated positions. At HD Hyundai Samho, they will stack scaffolding pieces, the structures that secure elevated work platforms to a ship's hull during construction. At Delivery Lab, they will move refrigerated logistics packaging. The aim is to determine how reliably humanoids can perform actual processes across four industries with differing work environments and precision requirements.
The appeal of humanoids is that they can be deployed across multiple processes without major changes to existing production lines. Unlike industrial robots that repeat tasks from a fixed position, humanoids can move around a worksite and take on varied jobs, allowing flexible responses at plants where processes change frequently. The government is backing humanoid development because it sees the technology as a way to address manufacturing labor shortages, raise productivity and accelerate the AI transformation of manufacturing, known as M.AX.
Before the exemption, existing rules treated industrial robots as stationary equipment and required safety fences and other barriers to separate human and robot work areas. Those standards were difficult to apply to humanoids that move alongside workers while cleaning, carrying and stacking.
The government has until now responded by lifting individual rules when companies applied to the regulatory sandbox, but as AI and robotics advance more quickly it is shifting toward identifying and overhauling regulatory bottlenecks on its own rather than waiting for applications. The humanoid exemption is part of that shift: deployment is permitted on condition of risk assessments and safety measures, and the data gathered will be used to draw up future safety standards.
Government support is also expanding beyond technology development toward real-world deployment and mass-production capacity. After launching the K-Humanoid Alliance in April last year, the government is increasing field demonstrations this year through the AI Robot M.AX Alliance. In August it unveiled a medium- to long-term plan to invest a cumulative 2.3 trillion won ($1.6 billion) in the humanoid ecosystem by 2030 and to raise the share of domestically made core components to 80%. The government also plans to purchase a cumulative 1,080 domestically produced humanoids to support early demand.
"AI technology is advancing so fast that regulation struggles to keep up," Trade and Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan said. "We need to move quickly to remove the institutional bottlenecks that stand in the way of companies applying new technologies on industrial sites."
Overseas, the humanoid race has already moved from laboratories to production lines. BMW deployed Figure AI's Figure 02 humanoid at its plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, assigning it to place sheet metal parts into welding equipment. Over roughly 10 months it handled more than 90,000 parts and contributed to the production of more than 30,000 BMW X3 vehicles.
China is also accelerating deployment on the strength of its vast manufacturing base. Shanghai has set a goal of placing 8,000 humanoids in factories by 2028, along with 500 advanced smart factories and more than 2,000 cases of AI use in manufacturing.
Korea's robotics industry lags leading countries in both deployment scale and industrial competitiveness. New industrial robot installations in Korea totaled 30,200 units last year, according to the International Federation of Robotics, below China's 354,200, the U.S.'s 38,400 and Japan's 36,200. Korea's overall competitiveness in manufacturing robots scored 72.9 points in an assessment by the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade, trailing the U.S. at 80.6 and China at 79.4.
Manufacturing, with its vast and complex value chains in semiconductors, automobiles and shipbuilding, is seen as a strength that could help Korea close the gap. For humanoids to take over human tasks, they must learn from large volumes of behavioral data, including the movements of skilled workers and process know-how, meaning Korea's own factory floors can serve as training grounds for robots.
"Korea has the manufacturing sites and the skilled workers, which puts it in a favorable position for humanoid demonstrations," said Han Jae-kwon, a professor of robotics engineering at Hanyang University. "What matters is expanding these pilots to accumulate behavioral data such as how skilled workers move."
