LG Launches "Physical AI Lab" for Robotics
LG has launched a new "Physical AI Lab" dedicated to advancing robotics and humanoid development. The initiative will focus on embedding the company's multimodal AI model, "Exaone," directly into robotic controllers. The goal is to create truly autonomous machines for manufacturing and service applications.
- The Physical AI Lab represents an evolution of LG's former "Vision Lab," signaling a strategic shift from developing visual perception systems to creating advanced "behavior models" that translate perception into complex physical actions. - This initiative is part of a "One LG" strategy that vertically integrates the company's affiliates: LG Electronics is developing robotic actuators, LG Innotek supplies camera and vision systems, and LG Energy Solution is creating optimized batteries for robotic platforms. - LG's Exaone AI is a hybrid model that combines a large language model with a reasoning AI model, designed to enable robots to learn by observing and replicating human actions, moving beyond pre-scripted automation. - In addition to internal R&D, LG Technology Ventures has made strategic investments in external robotics firms, including a partnership with US-based Skild AI for industrial humanoids and participation in funding rounds for Figure AI alongside Microsoft and Nvidia. - Prior to this lab's launch, LG co-developed a humanoid robot named "KAPEX" with the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), which features multi-finger robotic hands with tactile sensing and reinforcement learning capabilities. - The push into physical AI is a direct challenge to other major players in the humanoid robotics space, such as Tesla's Optimus and Boston Dynamics' Atlas, in a market that Goldman Sachs projects will reach $38 billion by 2035. - The latest version of the core AI, EXAONE 4.0, has been released as an open-weight model on the Hugging Face platform for research and educational use, with benchmarks showing it outperforms other leading open-weight models in math and science problem-solving. - LG's focus extends beyond industrial applications, having already unveiled a humanoid robot for domestic tasks called "CLOiD" at CES 2026, building on its experience with its existing "CLOi" line of wheeled service robots.
