Daedong Gear plans China JV with humanoid joint maker EYOU, 30,000 actuators a year

Daedong Gear, the Korean gear maker in the Daedong farm-machinery group, said in a press release on Oct 29 that it will set up a joint venture in China with EYOU Robot Technology to develop and build robot joint actuators. The partners aim to form the company by January 2027 and give it a line able to make 30,000 actuator sets a year. Daedong Gear plans to start its own mass production in Korea in 2029, after learning to make the parts in China first.

The order of that plan is the story. A Korean listed parts maker is choosing to learn actuator manufacturing inside a Chinese supplier's ecosystem rather than build it at home from scratch, and to bring production back only once the process works.

What the three companies signed

Daedong Gear and its sister company Daedong Robotics each signed a memorandum of understanding with EYOU in Shanghai. The release dates the signing to Oct 27 in its main text and to Oct 28 in its photo captions; it does not resolve the difference. The three companies say they have been co-developing actuators since early 2026 and that the MOUs extend that work to production, supply and field trials.

The split of work is specific. Daedong Gear handles reducers, product design and performance and quality testing. EYOU brings motor design, drive and control electronics, and assembly and test know-how. Daedong Robotics feeds the motion and load profiles of farm work into the design, develops motors and drivers, and will fit the actuators to Daedong's agricultural humanoid for field validation. The JV is to develop planetary and harmonic actuator families with integrated motor, reducer and sensor, build prototypes and a pilot line in China, and later sell commercially. Daedong did not disclose the investment, the equity split or where in China the JV will sit.

The timeline runs in three steps: a first actuator family in the first half of 2027; JV production for Daedong's farm robots and outside customers through 2028; then from 2029 a dual structure in which Daedong Gear produces and supplies in Korea and the JV serves China.

Who EYOU is, checked against its own pages

EYOU, founded in 2018 and registered as Jiangsu Eyou Robot Technology, makes integrated servo joint modules in harmonic, planetary and linear versions for humanoid hips, knees, shoulders and wrists, cobots and industrial automation. Its website states an annual capacity of more than one million sets, more than 100 R&D staff and more than 60 patents, and lists supplier awards from AgiBot. Daedong's release cites the Chinese research house GGII as ranking EYOU first by 2025 shipments of harmonic joint modules for Chinese humanoids.

The shipment figure can be cross-checked. Daedong's release gives about 95,000 joint modules in 2025, and the Shanghai Pudong government gave the same 95,000 when EYOU opened an automated joint line in Zhangjiang in January 2026. The release also says EYOU expects to sell 1.1 million sets in 2026, a twelvefold jump that only EYOU's own capacity claim supports and that no filing confirms.