Korea opens bidding for a 9.7bn won humanoid robot safety certification centre in Daegu

South Korea's industry ministry has opened bidding for the country's first testing and certification facility built specifically for humanoid robots. In notice No. 2026-217, published on 23 March 2026, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) called for proposals to build a Humanoid Robot Safety Certification Center, a five-year infrastructure project that the ministry says will support safety and security certification of domestic humanoids and help the industry respond to global regulation.

The money is modest by the standards of Korean industrial policy. The notice caps total government funding at 9,681 million won over 2026 to 2030, of which up to 872 million won is available in the first year, running from April to December 2026. Government funds may cover no more than 70 percent of total project cost excluding construction, and the participating institutions and other backers must contribute at least 30 percent. MOTIE will fund a single project, classified as infrastructure rather than research and development.

The geography is fixed in advance. According to the notice, the lead institution must obtain a written commitment of cash or in-kind support from a local government in the Daegu area, either Daegu Metropolitan City or the relevant district. Only non-profit bodies, meaning research institutes, universities and associations, may apply as lead or partner institutions. Proposals were accepted from 15:00 on 23 March to 18:00 on 21 April 2026, and evaluators score them on clarity of objectives (30 points), organisation and strategy (20), capability of the applicant (20), diffusion of results (20) and budget adequacy (10).

The request for proposals sets out what the centre must build. It lists four systems: a dynamic stability rig that tests walking, static posture and the distribution of support forces; an AI model reliability system that checks behavioural consistency and performance on data the model has not seen in training; a security evaluation system that probes components and communication protocols for vulnerabilities; and a testbed that simulates real factory, logistics, household and outdoor environments.

The final-year targets are specific. By 2030 the centre is expected to operate at least three types of equipment at a utilisation rate of 60 percent or more, serve at least 12 companies through shared use, earn 200 million won in equipment fees, handle at least 60 testing, evaluation and certification cases, establish at least three group standards, obtain one accreditation as a KOLAS testing laboratory and issue at least three KOLAS test reports.

MOTIE's rationale, as stated in the request for proposals, is that humanoids heading into factories, services and homes need their own safety criteria and a certification system and infrastructure to verify them before they arrive. The document names AI errors, collisions and malfunctions as the safety problems it expects. Among the expected effects it lists faster localisation of humanoid-specific core components, higher public trust through environment-by-environment safety and security checks, and new demand linked to hard physical work and an ageing society.

Daegu already hosts Korea's main robot industry agency. The Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement (KIRIA) is headquartered on Nowon-ro in Daegu's Buk district, runs a certification centre at an adjoining address and offers certification, standardisation, test evaluation and KC conformity assessment, including a safety certification for outdoor mobile robots, according to its website. The notice does not name a preferred applicant.

The project sits inside a broader industrial push. MOTIE launched the K-Humanoid Alliance on 10 April 2025 with more than 40 organisations, including Rainbow Robotics, Doosan Robotics, LG Electronics and Holiday Robotics, and set targets that include a shared robot AI foundation model by 2028 and humanoid hardware weighing 60 kg or less with more than 50 degrees of freedom, a payload of at least 20 kg and speed of 2.5 m/s. The government's Manufacturing AX (M.AX) Alliance, launched in September 2025, counts about 1,000 companies, institutes and universities in 11 divisions, one of them dedicated to humanoids, according to a government policy briefing on 27 February 2026.

International rule-making is moving at the same time. ISO technical committee TC 299 approved a new project on 22 May 2025 for ISO 25785-1, safety requirements for dynamically stable industrial mobile robots, a category that explicitly includes legged machines. In Europe, Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 on machinery becomes mandatory on 20 January 2027, replacing the Machinery Directive, according to the European Commission. Korean humanoid makers that want to sell into Europe will need to show conformity with that regime.

Several questions remain open. The notice does not specify which certification marks the centre will issue, how its group standards will relate to ISO work in progress, or whether certification will be voluntary or tied to public procurement. A budget averaging under 2 billion won a year buys test rigs and staff, not a large proving ground, and the 200 million won revenue target implies the facility will depend on government money through 2030.