KT launches AI quarantine robot

Lee Sang-ho, second from left, vice president and head of KT's AI Robot Business Unit, introduces the company's quarantine robot during an online press conference, Wednesday. Courtesy of KT

By Baek Byung-yeul

KT has launched an artificial intelligence (AI) quarantine robot intended for use at hospitals and other large facilities receiving many visitors. With quarantine robots being just the start of things to come, the telecommunications giant plans to expand its presence in the fast-growing service robot market, the company said, Wednesday.

The company said it rolled out two kinds of quarantine robots ― a medium-sized one and a larger version. Although the two robots differ in their quarantine capacity and size, they both feature plasma, ultraviolet wavelength and air cleaning so that they can sterilize over 99.9 percent of viruses, while at the same time being harmless to humans.

"KT's AI quarantine robots are not harmful to the human body while providing quality quarantine care. Also, the robots are intelligent products that monitor air condition in real time to find places to sterilize," Lee Sang-ho, vice president and head of KT's AI Robot Business Unit, said during an online press conference.

KT said that the robots are already in use in the business-to-business market, and several businesses are currently operating the robots. The company will begin full-scale sales activities starting this April. KT said its customers such as public agencies, hospitals and childcare facilities can use the quarantine robots for a monthly subscription fee of around 750,000 won ($620).

KT's AI quarantine robot / Courtesy of KT

The robot business chief said that KT will continue to introduce more service robots, and eventually also play the role of a robotics platform company that helps incorporate robot services into the daily lives of consumers who may not be familiar with robots.

"When it comes to robots in the past, many people think of large-scale industrial robots in manufacturing plants. But recently demand for service robots has been increasing rapidly. As market trends change, many experts predict that the market size of service robots will expand to 20 trillion won in the future," Lee said.

"Some people wonder what it means for KT to enter the robot market, but the company is highly prepared to provide robot services. KT already has solid customer infrastructure and business capabilities accumulated with platform businesses such as networks, IPTV, big data, cloud computing and autonomous driving, and the company is transplanting its accumulated capabilities to the robot business."

Revealing KT's future robot services, Lee said the company will introduce delivery robots within this year. "In addition to the quarantine robots, integrated indoor and outdoor delivery service robots are being prepared before the second half of this year. We are preparing to commercialize delivery service robots that provide courier and food delivery services in apartment complexes," he said.

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