Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank, predicts that “the day will surely come when we get to coexist with intelligent robots.” The Boston Consulting Group projects that “robots will be the center of radical changes that will transform the competitive landscape for the global economy.”

Core service areas for intelligent robots in 2020 are said to include medical, safety, next-generation manufacturing, Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) robots capable of communicating with human, national defense robots, etc. Among these, manufacturing robots account for 64% of total robot market, followed by professional service robots (23%) and personal service robots (13%).

Medical and safety service robots to see rapid growth

As national income exceeds USD 20,000 to reach USD 30,000, robot markets for medical, safety, national defense, etc. are standing out as significant areas and market for AI personal service communicating with human is projected to expand. While manufacturing robots have been center of topics up to now, the market will be developed increasingly centering on service robot based on platform.

 
▲Developed by researchers at Japan's Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN) and Tokai Rubber Industries, Ltd. (TRI), RIBA (Robot for Interactive Body Assistance) is a robot nurse that can recognize faces and voices, as well as respond to spoken commands, and respond flexibly to changes in the immediate environment. 

Explaining that a half of robotics is about AI, Joon-Ku Yeo, Director-General of KIST Robotics and Media Institute, said that “Korea’s investment in AI field started from 2001, mainly focusing on talents. Now, our R&D needs to stop following others in their steps and come up with more ambitious policy investing in source technologies in bottleneck areas.”

Experts think that what is most urgent is to set up ecosystem for intelligent robot markets one by one in the field of upcoming professional and personal service areas. This is in consideration of the fact that implementation of integrated intelligence is a still unexplored field for most other countries, too.

Eun-Dong Hwang, Director of SK Telecom, also emphasized that establishment of ecosystem is at least as important as hardware in the field of intelligent robots. Taking social robots capable of talking and communicating sensitively with humans as an example, he predicted that “at first, robot market will be hardware-oriented but, later on, it will be dictated by apps or services just as smart-phones were.