[Edaily Reporter Kwon Oh Seok ] The stock price of AI (artificial intelligence) specialist LaonPeople Inc.(300120)is surging. It appears that buying interest is surging following news that the company has been selected for a major government-funded project in the field of Physical AI, led by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National IT Industry Promotion Agency (NIPA).

According to MP Doctor on the 4th, LaonPeople Inc.’s stock was trading at 3,805 won as of 9:28 a.m., up 18.17% from the previous trading day.
Previously, on the previous day, LaonPeople Inc. announced that it had been officially selected as the implementing organization for the “Research and Development of a Specialized Model for Unmanned Factory Operation—Physical AI SDF (Software-Defined Factory)” project, part of the “Creation of an R&D Ecosystem for Collaborative Intelligence Physical AI-Based Software Platforms” initiative.
This project is being conducted as a consortium led by Chonbuk National University, with a total of 15 industry, academic, and research institutions participating, including LaonPeople Inc. and NC AI. With a total budget of 70.2 billion won over five years through 2030, it is the largest government-funded project in the domestic Physical AI sector.
The core objective of the project is to develop a “Physical AI Foundation Model” for unmanned factory operations. The AI model to be developed will serve as the “brain of the factory,” autonomously assessing variable on-site conditions—such as production bottlenecks or equipment failures—in real time to adjust task assignments and production schedules. The technology developed through this project is scheduled to be applied across seven sectors, including the production lines of three manufacturing companies in the automotive industry.
Within the consortium, LaonPeople Inc. is responsible for implementing and validating practical AI technologies—such as anomaly detection, predictive maintenance, and process optimization—to ensure the Physical AI Foundation Model can be applied to automotive parts and robotics factories.
Building on this project, the company plans to consolidate its proprietary visual-language model (VLM) and Agent AI technologies into the robotics sector to accelerate the commercialization of Physical AI, enabling robots to “see, judge, and move.” Specifically, the company intends to develop an “Edge AI Board”—an on-device solution that allows VLM and Agent AI to be directly embedded in robots—and widely supply it to the industrial robotics market.