KT to Invest in Robot Business Affiliate of Hyundai Heavy Industries Group

KT will make an equity investment in a robot development subsidiary of Hyundai Heavy Industries Group. The equity investment will pave the way for combining KT’s 5G and cloud technologies with the robot and smart factory technologies of Hyundai Heavy Industries Group.

KT is seeking to acquire about 50 billion won worth of new shares of Hyundai Robotics. The total corporate value of Hyundai Robotics has been estimated at 500 billion won, and KT will secure a stake of about 10 percent.

Hyundai Robotics is a company split off from Hyundai Heavy Industries Holdings Co., the holding company of Hyundai Heavy Industries Group, in May and is currently 100 percent owned by the holding company. The company manufactures robots used in such industrial sectors as automobiles, chemicals and electric and electronics. Hyundai Robotics is planning to expand its sales to more than 1 trillion won within five years.

The main reason for KT’s decision to invest in Hyundai Robotics is that the smart factory and robot industries are closely related to ICT. Already, KT is working with Hyundai Heavy Industries Group to apply its 5G and edge cloud technologies to the robot management system developed by Hyundai Heavy Industries Holdings. Based on this, KT plans to release a service that can control various robots such as industrial robots, mobile robots, service robots, and self-driving robots that are linked to 5G networks.

In addition, Hyundai Heavy Industries Group is using KT's 5G technology to build smart shipyards and smart ships. The company is also developing smart logistics solutions by combining 5G communications and artificial intelligence (AI) with Hyundai Construction Equipment's unmanned forklift.