00:00korea's startup funding landscape just got more interesting robot hands are moving from warehouses
00:05into hospitals and a chinese humanoid maker is planning a korean r d base here's what that
00:10could mean for founders it's monday november 2nd let's look at what this means for startups
00:15and entrepreneurs in korea korean robotics startup aidan robotics is building force sensing hands
00:21for warehouses and operating rooms the company was founded in 2019 out of a sun kyung kwan
00:27university robotics lab its core products are force torque sensors and tactile sensors that let
00:33robots grip objects without damaging them here's what the numbers show aidan robotics is piloting
00:38its robot hands with cj logistics on packing and handling tasks where the goal is to handle
00:43products of varying sizes and materials without damage the company is also part of a korean arpa
00:48h project called orchestra led by samsung seoul hospital where its sensors will help surgical
00:53robots handle instruments its second generation hand aidan hand gen 2 is targeting a full commercial
01:00launch by the end of this year matrix robotics a chinese humanoid company founded in 2024 by engineers
01:06who worked on tesla's optimist program has already secured about 1 000 humanoid robot orders in roughly
01:12two years and plans to set up a joint r d center in korea within a year its korean partnership
01:17covers
01:18three areas co-developing products with local firms and research institutes building training grounds to
01:24collect robot learning data and finding local distribution partners so what does this mean for
01:29a founder weighing a move into korea's robotics market three things stand out first the bottleneck
01:35in robotics is shifting from vision to physical data cameras can see where an object is but only force
01:41and touch sensing can tell a robot how hard to grip second real world deployment data is becoming
01:46the competitive moat and that favors teams that can get into factories warehouses and hospitals early
01:52third korea offers a research base a policy environment favorable to robot exports and a platform for
01:59expanding into asia pacific markets earlier we said that physical ai data is the new moat here's what
02:05that actually means for you if you're building in this space your edge will come from who collects the
02:10real world sensing data first seoul's new physical ai center backed by seoul national university and a
02:17national research institute is also worth watching it plans to support about five startups a year and
02:22nurture five promising teams by 2028 what to watch seoul's new testbed matrix robotics korea center
02:29and aid in hand gen 2's commercial launch by year end that's today's ai prism founders this episode was
02:37produced with ai assistance based on seoul economic daily reporting ai prism is a wan ifra award-winning
02:44series we'll be back tomorrow
