Yandex Eyes Last Mile Market in Korea
KT announced on Jan. 18 that it has signed an agreement with Yandex Self Driving Group (SDG), an affiliate of Russia’s largest IT company Yandex, for business cooperation in AI, robots, and autonomous driving.
The agreement was signed at the Yandex Autonomous Driving Improvement Center in Moscow, Russia, attended by Song Jae-ho, vice president of the AI/DX convergence business division at KT, Lee Sang-ho, head of the AI Robot Business Group, and Dmitry Polishchuk, CEO of Yandex SDG.
The two companies will jointly develop a robot business model tailored to Korea and launch self-driving delivery robot products in 2022, develop and upgrade AI robot solutions, and run a task force to cooperate in additional ICT businesses.
Yandex’s self-driving robot “Rover” already started service in some parts of Russia at the end of 2020. Since 2021, the robot has offered delivery services in Ann Arbor, Michigan of the United States and Tel Aviv of Israel. The Rover travels at 3 to 5 miles (5 to 8 kilometers) per hour and can run on paved roads, pedestrian areas, and crosswalks. Yandex has been striving to accumulate technologies in the field of autonomous driving by establishing an autonomous driving joint venture with Uber.
“Yandex will provide the Rover and KT will provide support, in terms of telecommunications and road driving environments including GPS in Korea, to ensure that the Rover can drive well in Korea,” a KT official said, “Yandex’s Rover will be released in Korea within 2022.”
Russian IT giant Yandex wants to enter the “last mile” market in Korea. The last mile refers to the last contact section in delivering goods to end consumers. The global last mile market is expected to be about 100 trillion won in 2030, more than seven times larger than now. The last mile accounts for more than half of the total cost of logistics. Replacing human labor with autonomous driving in the last delivery stage can save delivery companies a huge amount of money.
However, there are many hurdles to clear. Currently, under the relevant domestic law, autonomous robots are classified as cars, so they are not allowed to drive on sidewalks and crosswalks. If they carry a package weighing more than 30 kilograms, they cannot run in a park either. Taking photos in the process of autonomous driving may go against the Personal Information Protection Act. Some driving was allowed as a regulatory exception, but has to satisfy the additional condition that a robot be accompanied by an on-site person. Baemin and startup Neubility, and Robotis are entering the last mile market, but this business is far from autonomous driving in a strict sense due to many restrictions under the current domestic law.