Korea's largest robot show opens with humanoid dancers and a public-procurement push

The industry ministry said Wednesday that Robot World 2026, the country's largest robot exhibition, opened at KINTEX in Goyang with 402 companies occupying 1,198 booths, the biggest edition yet.

The four-day fair, hosted by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and organized jointly with the Korea AI Robot Industry Association, the Korea Robot Industry Promotion Institute and the Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems, runs through Saturday. It opened with a performance by a domestic humanoid robot that danced to K-pop choreography and ran through taekwondo poomsae forms.

The exhibition arrives as the global robot industry shifts toward what the ministry calls "physical AI," in which machines judge and move on their own rather than repeating fixed tasks. According to the International Federation of Robotics, about 603,000 industrial robots were newly installed in factories worldwide last year, up 11 percent from a year earlier and a record high, while the number of robots in operation passed 5 million for the first time.

South Korea sits at the center of that change, with 1,220 robots per 10,000 manufacturing workers, the world's highest robot density, according to 2024 IFR figures.

Ahead of the first nationwide supply of robots to public institutions next year, a "K-Robot Public Pre-Market" pavilion is displaying and demonstrating the humanoid, four-wheeled, quadruped and care robots eligible for that program. Twenty-two companies are taking part, including Lion Robotics with quadruped robots, LG Electronics with humanoids and Clobot with four-wheeled models. Public procurement agencies, which met robot makers at a product briefing on Oct. 28 and 29, are using the fair to inspect performance and continue detailed talks with suppliers.

The fair also hosts a "K-Defense Commercial Robot Technology Roadshow," where private robot companies present technology to defense officials and the two sides explore military applications.

"South Korea has abundant manufacturing data and excellent technical personnel, so it has ample potential to leap forward as a robot powerhouse," Lee Min-woo, head of the ministry's industrial growth office, said in a speech at the opening ceremony. He added that the government would strengthen policy support so the industry's potential is realized quickly and robots become a second semiconductor sector, and would work to bring robots into the military swiftly using private-sector capabilities.

At an awards ceremony following the opening, 25 people were honored for contributions to the robot industry. Ryu Jae-wan, chief executive of SBB Tech, received an industrial decoration for his role in developing and supplying localized core robot components, while others received presidential, prime ministerial and ministerial citations.