[Edaily Reporter Shin Yeong-bin ] “I think we’ll be able to compete on nearly equal footing with China next year.”

Kim Byung-soo, CEO of ROBOTIS(108490), expressed this confidence regarding the achievements of the humanoid robot developed in collaboration with domestic university students. The company’s vision is to go beyond simply building technology internally and instead open its robot platform to universities and developers to foster the domestic humanoid ecosystem.

On the 31st, ROBOTIS held the “K-Humanoid Ecosystem Launch Ceremony” at its Magok headquarters in Gangseo-gu, Seoul, and unveiled the results of the first cohort of the “Open Humanoid GYM (OH!GYM!)” project.

Open Humanoid Gym is a project that supports college students in developing robot artificial intelligence (AI) and motion control technologies using actual humanoid robots. ROBOTIS provided its proprietary humanoid robot, “AI Sapiens,” and basic open-source software to teams from four universities: Seoul National University, Yonsei University, Seoul National University of Science and Technology, and Gachon University.

On the day of the event, the students showcased the results of their approximately one-month-long development efforts. They taught the humanoids various movements—including obstacle courses, taekwondo, parkour, and K-pop dance—and successfully executed them on the actual robots.

They also introduced the process of reducing the “Sim-to-Real gap”—which occurs when applying movements learned in simulation to actual robots—and improving balance and motion to prevent the robots from falling.

CEO Kim emphasized that an open platform could be a strength in humanoid robot competitions. He explained that an open approach, where multiple developers collaborate to improve the technology, can enhance competitiveness in the long term.

Referring to a humanoid robot competition held in China, he commented, “I think the results we demonstrated today are somewhat similar to what China achieved last year,” adding, “Given that these results were created by students with limited experience participating in an open platform, they are far more valuable and forward-looking.”

Government research and development (R&D) officials also agreed that the environment allowing students to directly utilize humanoid robots should be expanded.

Kim Wook, Physical AI Program Manager at the Institute for Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP), said, “In the next phase, we must also address the challenge of integrating AI so that robots can recognize visual input and act automatically.”

He continued, “I hope that platforms like AI Sapiens become widely available in Korea, forming a kind of robotics infrastructure, and that many companies emerge based on this,” adding, “I hope this will lay the foundation for Korea to become a world-class leader in the fields of physical AI and humanoid robots.”

Park Il-woo, a robotics project director at the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KEIT), emphasized, “When visiting universities, I often find that students lack sufficient equipment to use for their research,” adding, “Students need opportunities to experience products from various robotics companies.”

ROBOTIS plans to expand the scope of participation by continuing the Open Humanoid Jim initiative with Phases 2 and 3. The vision is to create a structure where universities and developers can develop various technologies on the open-source humanoid platform and share them in turn, thereby broadening the domestic humanoid development ecosystem.