Rainbow Robotics CEO says only conglomerates win Korea's robot race unless the state leads

Lee Jung-ho, chief executive of Samsung-backed Rainbow Robotics, told an AI and robot industry ecosystem forum at the National Assembly on Oct 21 that leaving Korea's robot sector to the market would hand it to a few vertically integrated conglomerates, ZDNet Korea reported; MEKAWIRE found no transcript or company statement, so the quotes rest on that report.

According to the report, Lee said a deployed robot needs four parties, the robot maker, the AI developer, the system integrator and the end customer, and that the largest Korean manufacturers would never open their factory data to outsiders, leaving only groups such as Hyundai Motor and Samsung, which can do everything in house as Tesla does, able to field AI robots.

He cited large firms at about 1% of Korean companies and SMEs at 98.6%, and asked the government to go beyond R&D grants and open public resources and facilities to create demand directly. MEKAWIRE context: Samsung Electronics has held 35% of Rainbow Robotics since December 2024, and mobile humanoids such as the RB-Y1 were 40.5% of its KRW 21.38bn first-half 2026 sales, per MEKAWIRE's company explainer.