Last week in Las Vegas, the United States, the world’s largest information technology (IT) exhibition, “CES 2026,” was held successfully. With 4,200 organizations from around the world participating and approximately 150,000 visitors in attendance, the core keyword running through this year’s CES was the “full-scale deployment of artificial intelligence (AI).”

AI was applied to products and services across all industrial domains, including autonomous driving, robotics, digital healthcare, and smart homes, and a reality had already unfolded in which survival is impossible without AI competitiveness. The phrase “Innovators Show up,” which the organizers put forward as the theme of the event, also seemed to express that innovation has already become a reality in industry and everyday life.

In particular, as “physical AI” technologies, which interact with the physical world and operate autonomously, become more sophisticated and are expanded across all industries, they are accelerating the full-scale deployment of AI. Physical AI products such as robots and drones exhibited at CES increased by about 30% compared with last year. Outside the exhibition halls, fully unmanned vehicles with no driver and no driver’s seat were driving through crowded streets. Companies such as NVIDIA and Caterpillar, which delivered keynote speeches, mentioned physical AI and emphasized its importance.

Korean companies also participated in CES in large numbers. They achieved a standout performance by sweeping 220 of the more than 450 Innovation Awards announced, accounting for nearly half the total. In particular, Korea, as a country with world-class manufacturing competitiveness, demonstrated its potential in the field of physical AI without reservation. Hyundai Motor unveiled the humanoid robot “Atlas,” which CES’s official IT media partner CNET selected as Best Robot, one day before the opening of CES. Doosan Robotics received the Best of Innovation Award for “Scan&Go,” a robot that recognizes large structures and performs necessary tasks without separate instructions.

Domestic small and venture companies also proved their technological capabilities. Deepfusion AI received the Best of Innovation Award for its AI-based autonomous driving technology using radar, and DoomDoom received the Best of Innovation Award for its drone system that samples water quality and monitors the environment in real time.

Although Korea’s potential in physical AI is receiving high international recognition, there are still challenges to be resolved in order to realize this potential as AI competitiveness. The key is an organically connected physical AI ecosystem.

In fact, at CES, major companies presented “expanding the influence of the global physical AI ecosystem” as a key strategy. NVIDIA sought to strengthen its leadership in the physical AI developer ecosystem by making all models, data, and simulation tools of its autonomous driving product line “Alpamayo” available as open source. AMD, in its keynote speech, invited to the stage a wide range of companies from various fields, from OpenAI President Greg Brockman to firms in healthcare, robotics, and space, pursuing a counter-strategy that showcased the possibilities that can be created through collaboration with other sectors.

To take the lead in the global hegemony race over physical AI, there is a need to rapidly build an ecosystem for the swift commercialization of physical AI by bringing together large corporations, SMEs, government-funded research institutes, and universities. Based on this recognition, the government has clearly designated physical AI as a core pillar of the next-generation national strategy and is systematically preparing a full-cycle strategy that connects research, demonstration, industrialization, and regulation.

First, the government plans to significantly support the development of AI foundation models and world models, areas that the private sector finds difficult to enter easily due to profitability issues, in order to strengthen technological competitiveness that is somewhat lacking in Korea’s ecosystem. In addition, to create leading use cases that can serve as a catalyst for the spread of physical AI, the government plans to support the rapid application of advanced technologies by linking them with core industries in different regions.

Furthermore, Korea’s physical AI technologies and ecosystem must be endowed with competitiveness and universality so that they are not a closed, Korea-only AI system but can be chosen on the global stage. To this end, the government is supporting mutual cooperation between global AI companies such as NVIDIA and OpenAI and domestic AI companies. In particular, NVIDIA has signed a “Physical AI Cooperation Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)” with Hyundai Motor and the Ministry of Science and ICT, and is materializing cooperation projects, including the establishment of an NVIDIA research and development (R&D) center in Korea. In addition, the government plans to expand the “Physical AI Global Alliance,” which was launched last year.

In the first keynote speech of this year’s CES, AMD Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Lisa Su emphasized that AI still holds innovation potential, stating, “You haven’t seen anything yet.” The government will build a cooperative ecosystem that explores together the blind spots of innovation that cannot be seen alone and will support Korea’s leap forward to become one of the world’s top three AI powers leading the era of physical AI.

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