Introduction of Humanoid Robots Specialized for Heavy Industry Sites
POSCO Group is making a full-fledged push to expand the adoption of physical AI in the field by investing in a U.S. company specializing in industrial humanoid robots.
On December 23, POSCO DX announced that it has invested 2 million dollars (2.9688 billion KRW) in Persona AI, a U.S.-based industrial humanoid robot company, and will collaborate on joint robot development and on-site applications.
This investment was made through the "POSCO DX Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) New Technology Investment Association," which was funded by POSCO DX and POSCO Technology Investment in the second half of this year. An additional 1 million dollars was invested through the "POSCO CVC Scale-up Fund No. 1" established by POSCO Technology Investment, bringing the total group-level investment to 3 million dollars (4.4532 billion KRW).
Persona AI, founded in June last year, is an industrial humanoid robot company developing robots specialized for heavy-duty industrial sites with high labor intensity. The company was co-founded by CEO Nicholas Radford, a former NASA robotics engineer, and CTO Jerry Pratt, who previously served as Chief Technology Officer at Figure AI, a U.S. humanoid robotics firm.
Persona AI implements precise control functions based on NASA's robotic hand technology, enabling everything from fine component assembly to heavy load handling. The company also applies an AI control algorithm based on the Robot Foundation Model (RFM), which serves as the robot's brain, allowing the robot to autonomously interact with its environment and perform advanced tasks.
Through this investment, POSCO DX plans to further develop concrete collaboration measures for the development of humanoid robots that can replace high-risk manual processes at group company industrial sites.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
