Neuromeka to lead KRW 17.5bn national project teaching robots to weld curved ship hull blocks on their own

Korean cobot maker Neuromeka said on Sept 28, in a statement posted to its newsroom, that it will lead a project under the Ministry of Science and ICT's programme to develop and test human-AI collaborative Large Action Models, focused on welding the curved outer-hull blocks used in shipbuilding.

The project runs from August 2026 to December 2030 with a total budget of KRW 17.5 billion, of which KRW 10.5 billion is government R&D funding, and includes Neuromeka's subsidiary Robolution and other industry, academic and research partners.

Neuromeka plans to build combined datasets of block geometry, weld-seam positions, robot motion, welding conditions and quality readings, then use them to train a model that lets the robot find seams, plan its own path and correct trajectory and settings in real time as parts distort under heat.

Chief executive Park Jong-hoon said the company aims to turn the results into a standard autonomous welding platform for shipyards and later offshore plants, steel structures and defence. The ministry's wider physical-AI programme commits KRW 1.4131 trillion in North Jeolla and South Gyeongsang from 2026 to 2030.

Earlier in September, Pohang City said Neuromeka signed an investment MOU for a KRW 180 billion robot foundry and data centre in the city, as reported by EBN and reposted on Neuromeka's site; on Oct 6 Doosan Robotics said it had won two government projects worth about KRW 98.9 billion, one of them for intelligent cobot welding.