Nam Hyun-woo has worked as a staff writer at The Korea Times since 2013, mostly covering business and politics. He currently belongs to the Business Desk where he covers topics such as emerging tech, AI, ICT and Korea's chaebol community. Prior to joining the team, he was the paper's correspondent for the presidential office of Korea during the Yoon Suk Yeol and Moon Jae-in administrations.
LG to unveil Nvidia-powered humanoid robot in Q1 next year
LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo poses with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang as they hold a miniature humanoid robot presented by Koo to Huang after signing a memorandum of understanding at Nvidia headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif., Thursday (local time).
By Nam Hyun-woo
LG Chairman Koo, Nvidia CEO Huang sign MOU for strategic partnership
LG Group will unveil a humanoid robot based on Nvidia’s Isaac GR00T robot foundation model in the first quarter of next year, and extend its partnership with the U.S. tech giant in artificial intelligence (AI) data center and mobility businesses.
LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang signed “a strategic business collaboration" memorandum of understanding (MOU) detailing the partnership during their meeting at Nvidia's headquarters in Santa Clara, California, Thursday (local time). LG Group Vice Chairman Kwon Bong-seok, LG Electronics CEO Lyu Jae-cheol, LG Uplus CEO Hong Bum-shik, LG CNS CEO Hyun Shin-gyoon and other LG Group executives also attended the event.
The MOU came just two months after top executives from both companies agreed to cooperate in the AI industry. The MOU specifies areas for cooperation and details their plans in each field.
LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo, left, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang greet a crowd of people during their dinner at a restaurant in Mapo District, Seoul, June 5. Korea Times photo by Park Si-mon
“As our collaboration gains momentum, the tasks where the two companies can work together have become clearer in the field of AI factory, physical AI and mobility,” Koo said. “We will accelerate the adoption of AI by building industry-leading reference cases.” AI factory is Nvidia’s term for AI data centers.
“The defining opportunity of physical AI is to give every machine the ability to understand the real world, reason and act safely alongside people — reshaping everyday life from the home and factory floor to the road,” Huang said. “Building on years of collaboration, LG and Nvidia are combining LG’s leadership in product engineering and manufacturing with Nvidia technology to accelerate the next era of robots, AI factories and autonomous vehicles.”
LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang hold a box bearing their signatures and containing a miniature robot that was presented by Koo to Hwang during their meeting, Thursday (local time). Courtesy of LG
One focus of the partnership will be humanoid robots. LG said it is developing a bipedal robot that they hope to unveil in the first quarter of next year.
The robot will be equipped with Nvidia’s Jetson Thor for onboard computing and advanced reasoning and control, and will be developed based on Isaac GR00T, Nvidia’s robot development platform.
Isaac is an open source robotics development platform for both simulation and robot learning frameworks, while GR00T is a reference platform for building, training and testing humanoid robots.
The LG robot will also use Nvidia’s Halos for Robotics, which the company describes as the industry’s first full-stack integrated safety system for robotics.
LG Electronics will supply actuators that serve as its "muscles," while LG Innotek will provide sensors that function as its "eyes" and LG Energy Solution will supply batteries. The robot is expected to showcase the technologies and capabilities of LG’s key affiliates.
CLOiD, a wheel-based robot that LG Electronics showcased at CES 2026 in January, will also be tested on the washing machine production line at the company’s factory in Tennessee.
The robot data and manufacturing-site experience will be used to strengthen the competitiveness of LG’s own robot foundation model, which is currently under development. LG said it plans to utilize Nvidia’s Isaac GR00T ecosystem while also building up its own AI model capabilities.
LG Electronics' CLOiD robot / Courtesy of LG Electronics
For data centers, LG plans to combine Nvidia’s DSX data center architecture with LG Electronics’ cooling solutions, LG Energy Solution’s batteries, LG Uplus’ operational capabilities and LS Group’s power solutions. DSX is Nvidia’s reference architecture for designing AI data centers as integrated systems encompassing computing, networking, storage, power and cooling infrastructure.
In the first half of next year, LG will first establish a reference site using Nvidia’s Vera Rubin AI computing platform to apply and test the group’s cooling, power and IT technologies.
In the first half of 2028, it plans to build an 80-megawatt data center in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, using a prefabricated design to shorten the construction period. The facility will be used to advance physical AI technologies and LG’s robot foundation model.
For mobility, LG said it will use Nvidia’s DRIVE Hyperion autonomous driving platform to commercialize its vehicle computing platform for AI-defined vehicles. Based on Nvidia’s technology, LG plans to expand its automotive electronics capabilities beyond its existing focus on in-vehicle infotainment into autonomous driving.