[Edaily Reporter JAEMIN SONG ] The physical AI alliance between LGELECTRONICS and NVIDIA is moving beyond an agreement between top executives and taking concrete shape on the robot development front. Madison Huang, Senior Director—the eldest daughter of NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and a key figure in the robotics business—visited LGELECTRONICS’ “robot training center” to discuss collaboration on humanoid robots.

According to industry sources on the 17th, Madison Huang, Senior Director of Product Marketing for Omniverse and Robotics at NVIDIA, will visit the Data Factory currently under construction at LGELECTRONICS’ Yangjae Research and Development (R&D) Campus in Seocho-gu, Seoul, on the 18th. After touring the facility, she is scheduled to hold private discussions with senior LGELECTRONICS officials regarding a partnership in the field of robotics.

This visit comes just five days after LG Corp. Chairman Koo Kwang-mo and NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for strategic business cooperation at NVIDIA’s headquarters in Santa Clara, California, on the 13th. With key figures from NVIDIA’s robotics division visiting LGELECTRONICS’ development hub immediately after the two companies’ leaders agreed to expand cooperation—including in the area of physical AI—practical discussions appear to be gaining momentum.

The Data Factory, which LGELECTRONICS is establishing to enhance the intelligence of humanoid robots, is expected to be at the center of these discussions. The Data Factory is a facility designed to capture and train robots using movement and task data in environments modeled after homes or factories. Since humanoid robots require large-scale motion data to recognize objects, assess situations, and act in real-world spaces, the Data Factory serves as a kind of “robot training center.”

LGELECTRONICS is developing a bipedal humanoid robot based on the NVIDIA platform, with the goal of unveiling it in the first quarter of next year. The robot will be equipped with NVIDIA’s robotics computing module, the “Jetson Thor.” The humanoid foundation model “Isaac Groot” and the robot safety system “HALOS for Robotics” will also be utilized in the development process.

The collaboration between the two companies appears to go beyond a simple supply relationship, in which NVIDIA supplies chips and LGELECTRONICS builds the robots. The partnership combines NVIDIA’s AI semiconductors and simulation and training platforms with LGELECTRONICS’ spatial and device data—accumulated from home appliances, smart homes, and manufacturing sites—as well as its robot manufacturing capabilities. The scope of collaboration is likely to expand to cover the entire development process, from data collection and virtual simulation to AI training, the implementation of actual robot behaviors, and mass production.

In particular, LGELECTRONICS is regarded as having a strong advantage in building real-world usage data for humanoid robots, as it has established a business presence in both the home and factory sectors. There is also speculation that the scope of collaboration could be expanded to include not only home robots but also industrial robots deployed in manufacturing and logistics settings.

Senior Director Hwang joined NVIDIA in 2020 and has led product marketing efforts to expand the Physical AI ecosystem. Last April, he met with LGELECTRONICS CEO Ryu Jae-cheol at the LG Twin Towers in Yeouido, Seoul, to discuss collaboration plans for Physical AI, and he also accompanied CEO Jensen Huang during his visit to South Korea last June. Following these successive high-level exchanges and the on-site discussions at Data Factory, the collaboration between the two companies on the commercialization of humanoid robots is expected to become even more concrete.