Daedong to lead KRW 43.1bn state project putting Korean on-device AI chips into unmanned farm robots by 2030

Daedong said in a press release on Sept 9 that it has been named lead organisation for the unmanned farm-robot track of the K-On-Device AI Semiconductor programme run by Korea's Ministry of Trade and Industry, a project worth about KRW 43.1 billion that runs from July 2026 to December 2030 with 14 companies, institutes and universities.

The work is split three ways: Daedong Robotics builds the robot platform and modular implements with Rainbow Robotics, Koras Robotics, Hana SS, the Korea Institute of Robotics and Technology Convergence and two agricultural agencies; fabless chipmaker Mobilint and the Korea Electronics Technology Institute develop an AI system-on-chip suited to farm conditions; and Mobilus, Daedong Agtech, Suresoft Tech and Seoul National University build the autonomous-work AI and computing platform.

The chip is meant to run driving, crop recognition and obstacle avoidance on the robot itself, the company said. Core technology and prototypes are due in 2026-2028, followed by on-farm trials of spraying, harvesting, transport and crop scouting in 2029-2030; Daedong plans to extend the chips to tractors, rice transplanters and combines.

The overall chip programme, managed by KEIT, carries about KRW 800.2 billion to 2030 for ten customer-specific AI chips. It is the second national programme Daedong leads this year after the KRW 254.6 billion national agricultural AX platform, which MEKAWIRE noted in its Oct 15 K-GX story.