Samsung SDS (018260.KS) is preparing to lift the curtain on its new robotics business. The company will lay out its robot business vision in detail for the first time at a public event next week. IT industry officials say the presentation will offer clues not only to Samsung SDS's own plans but also to how major Samsung Group affiliates intend to deploy robots.
According to IT industry sources on the 5th, Samsung SDS plans to present a blueprint for its new robotics business at Real Summit 2026, the company's annual event to be held on the 8th of this month at COEX in Seoul. Bae Soon-min, a vice president who heads Samsung SDS's RX business team, will take the stage together with Moira Doherty, head of product management at Walden Robotics, to unveil the company's integrated robot execution framework. Walden Robotics is a U.S. startup that develops industrial and general-purpose robot hardware, and Samsung SDS has invested in the company.
The presentation on the integrated robot execution framework is expected to include an explanation of how robots will be linked to manufacturing execution systems, or MES. When Samsung SDS reported second-quarter earnings in July, it said it would pursue a "robot orchestration" business connecting robots and MES. The company has also reorganized, creating an RX business team and renaming its existing MES execution group the RX execution group. The MES execution group is the unit that sends developers to client factories to install MES directly, and the switch from MES to RX, short for robot transformation, signals a strong commitment to the new business.
Samsung SDS is also pushing into robotics in the United States. Its U.S. unit has recently begun hiring researchers in fields including real-time video understanding and physical artificial intelligence. Their research and development goals include AI that analyzes video of humanoid robots at work in real time to detect anomalies. Because humanoid robots are not yet in widespread use on industrial sites, the work is seen as early-stage research.
The framework presentation and related business blueprint also offer a window into how Samsung Group as a whole plans to adopt robots. Samsung SDS has already tested the feasibility of deploying robots on factory floors, using general-purpose robots from Walden Robotics to perform manual tasks such as parts handling and replacing consumables at Samsung Electro-Mechanics (009150.KS) and Semes plants. For work in unstructured and rough outdoor environments, such as the shipbuilding and plant sites of Samsung Heavy Industries (010140.KS) and Samsung E&A (028050.KS), it applied robot labor technology from RoboForce to confirm the potential for robotic automation.
