Control of joints, sensors seen as key to humanoid commercialization
LG Electronics will establish mass-production capacity for robot joints by the end of this year, while LG Innotek expects to begin large-scale output of sensing modules for humanoid robots by 2027 or 2028, the two companies’ CEOs announced at their annual shareholders meetings on Monday.
The parallel announcements amount to a coordinated supply chain play within the LG Group: LG Electronics targets the joints, LG Innotek the eyes, with each leveraging existing manufacturing infrastructure to enter a component market that is forming around the global humanoid robotics buildout.
LG Electronics CEO Lyu Jae-cheol declared 2026 the “inaugural year” of the company’s humanoid robotics business at the meeting held at LG Twin Towers in Yeouido, Seoul. He said the company would design, produce and supply its Axium actuator line, first shown at CES 2026 in January, to global robot manufacturers as a B2B parts business.
Actuators, the motorized modules that power a robot’s limbs, represent an estimated 40 to 60 percent of a humanoid’s total build cost, making them the single largest component expense. Controlling this layer of the supply chain is widely seen as a prerequisite for competitiveness in humanoid commercialization.
“We will establish a mass-production system within this year,” Lyu told shareholders, citing LG’s annual production of 45 million appliance motors as the manufacturing base for the pivot.
He added that CLOiD, the home robot unveiled at CES, would move from the lab into proof-of-concept deployment by next year. Nvidia spotlighted LG Electronics’ CLOiD alongside other humanoid platforms at its GTC 2026 conference earlier this month.
Lyu also set broader growth targets, projecting that revenue and operating profit from the company’s high-growth portfolio, including B2B, platform and direct-to-customer businesses, would exceed their 2025 levels by 70 percent and 140 percent, respectively, by 2030.
At LG Innotek’s Magok headquarters in western Seoul, CEO Moon Hyuk-soo told reporters the company was developing composite sensing modules that combine cameras, lidar and radar for humanoid robots, rather than supplying individual camera units. He said early production was already underway, with major US and European clients in active discussions.
“Large-scale mass production will come around 2027 to 2028, depending on client timelines,” Moon said. He estimated that robotics revenue would reach hundreds of billions of won by around 2030.
LG Innotek’s growing automotive and semiconductor substrate businesses, where the package solutions unit saw operating profit jump 82 percent last year, provide the cash flow for that longer-term horizon.
LG’s group-level robotics push comes amid a broader race among Korean conglomerates to secure positions in the humanoid robot supply chain. Hyundai Motor Group’s Hyundai Mobis supplies actuators for Boston Dynamics’ Atlas, while Samsung Electro-Mechanics is evaluating entry into the actuator market.
mjh@heraldcorp.com
