Hyundai Motor Group used the San Francisco AI Summit this week to formally reposition itself as a Physical AI solution company, with Executive Chair Euisun Chung telling roughly 150 attendees, including Korean business leaders, US tech executives, startups, and students, that the automaker is pushing well past its traditional manufacturing footprint into autonomous driving, robotics, and AI run factories.
Chung framed the strategy as a progression through three layers of intelligence. It begins with intelligent devices, meaning vehicles and robots enhanced with onboard AI. It then expands to intelligent spaces, described as AI Defined Factories where AI autonomously coordinates logistics, production, and quality control. The long term goal is city level intelligence, in which energy, mobility, and robotics systems across an entire city are connected and optimized in real time. “The ultimate Physical AI vision we pursue is the realization of integrated intelligence at the city level,” Chung said, describing a future where urban infrastructure operates as a single, AI coordinated system rather than a patchwork of separate services.
Data flywheel
Central to Hyundai’s pitch is what it calls a data flywheel, a feedback loop in which operational data from factories, vehicles, logistics networks, and robot deployments continuously trains and improves the Group’s AI models, which are then redeployed back into those same operations. Hyundai is betting that its decades of large scale manufacturing and mobility experience give it a real world testing ground that pure AI or robotics companies lack.
Robotics remains the most tangible pillar of the strategy, anchored by Boston Dynamics. Spot, the quadruped robot, and Stretch, the logistics robot, continue as commercially deployed platforms, alongside MobED, a next generation mobile robot platform from Hyundai Motor Group Robotics LAB. Atlas, the humanoid robot, was singled out as the flagship example of Physical AI, intended to work alongside people in manufacturing, logistics, and mobility settings. Hyundai confirmed plans to build a US robot production facility with capacity for up to 30,000 units annually by 2028. Atlas will debut at Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America in Georgia before wider rollout follows phased validation.
Partners
Three partnerships anchor the technology side of the strategy. With NVIDIA, the companies are deepening a relationship that already includes a 50,000 unit Blackwell GPU supply deal and a prior memorandum of understanding on Korean Physical AI capability. New steps include a Hyundai Motor Group Robot Application Center, contributions to NVIDIA’s AI Technology Center in Korea, and joint development of a Robot Reference Platform. On the manufacturing side, Hyundai is using NVIDIA’s platform to build more detailed digital twins of production facilities, and is integrating NVIDIA autonomous driving hardware, including semiconductors, sensors, and architecture, into its vehicle lineup.
With Waymo, the autonomous driving partnership continues, with a focus on the redundant steering, braking, power, and communications systems, power operated doors, and safety and cybersecurity features that self driving vehicles require. Hyundai plans to build autonomous ready IONIQ 5 units at Metaplant America in Georgia. The third partnership runs through Boston Dynamics rather than Hyundai directly, with Boston Dynamics working with Google DeepMind on advanced AI models and training systems to push humanoid robots toward greater autonomy in unstructured, real world environments.
Beyond its own products, Hyundai wants to seed Korea’s broader robotics industry. The Robot Reference Platform being developed with NVIDIA is intended to give universities, research institutes, and startups a standardized hardware and software environment for developing and validating Physical AI technology, aimed squarely at smaller players who have ideas but lack manufacturing and validation infrastructure.
Domestic
Hyundai paired the technology roadmap with two major domestic investment commitments. In the Saemangeum region of Jeonbuk State, the Group is developing Saemangeum AI Valley, with roughly KRW 9 trillion earmarked for AI data centers, a robotics manufacturing cluster, electrolyzer plants, and AI hydrogen city infrastructure. The robotics cluster will double as a foundry offering contract manufacturing to small and medium sized enterprises without their own production capability. In the Yeongnam region, Hyundai plans to invest a total of KRW 42 trillion over the next decade to foster advanced industrial hubs focused on AI driven manufacturing, future aerospace industries, and sustainable energy infrastructure. Hyundai frames these investments as building the underlying data, energy, and production infrastructure the Physical AI strategy depends on, while also delivering regional economic development and job creation in Korea.
