Robotis CEO: production capacity matters more than the demo, for now

Full solutions, not just actuators

Robotis built its name on the Dynamixel servo actuator — the modular motor used inside robots at Amazon, NASA, Google, Samsung, and BMW, among others. In a Sept 7 interview with Seoul Economic Daily, CEO Kim Byoung-soo said the company is reorienting around a bigger ambition: to "reinvent itself as a company that provides not only actuators but full humanoid solutions," built around its new Dynamixel-Q actuator line and its AI Sapiens bipedal humanoid.

The shift matters because it changes what Robotis is competing on. A component supplier competes on spec sheets. A solutions company competes on whether the whole robot actually works — and Kim's comments this week were almost entirely about that gap.

Torque, not just position and speed

"The key to making a humanoid move is how smoothly the AI model applied to the robot operates."

Asked what separates a humanoid that looks impressive in a demo from one that can actually be deployed, Kim pointed to a specific control-engineering choice: "What matters is control based on torque, or rotational force, rather than the conventional position and speed command system." Position/speed control tells a joint where to go and how fast; torque-based control governs how much force it applies getting there — the difference between a robot that can absorb a shove or catch an off-balance step, and one that can only execute pre-scripted motion.

Kim also connected this to Robotis's existing delivery-robot line, describing the company's approach as layering intelligence on top of hardware it already ships: "It is about putting the software that operates it on top of the hardware, which is the delivery robot." The Gaemi autonomous mobile robot, now in its fifth generation under the Robotis AI subsidiary, is the proving ground for that software stack before it moves to the bipedal AI Sapiens platform.

Why Uzbekistan, and why now

Robotis broke ground on a new manufacturing plant in the Yangi Avlod Special Industrial Zone in Tashkent on June 20, 2026, announced at the 5th Tashkent International Investment Forum. The facility is expected to create more than 1,000 skilled jobs and will produce humanoid robots and robotic components. Uzbekistan officials framed it as a step toward a regional robotics hub for Central Asia; for Robotis, it reads as a capacity bet made well ahead of confirmed mass-market humanoid demand.

Kim was direct about the reasoning: with Chinese humanoid and actuator makers scaling aggressively on price, "To succeed in the Chinese market, you need overwhelming performance compared with products from Chinese companies, along with price competitiveness." He added that the near-term priority isn't a flashier demo — it's operational readiness: "The main task is to have sufficient production capacity in place and secure price competitiveness in time for the shift into large-scale mass production." The interview also noted Kim raised roughly 88.7 billion won ($64M) through a recent stake sale, capital that plausibly funds some of this build-out, though the company has not itemized its use.

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