Samsung Electronics is accelerating development of an in-house humanoid robot prototype, aiming to unveil it publicly for the first time at CES 2027 in Las Vegas next January. The Seoul Economic Daily reported the plan on September 7. Asked about its humanoid robot plans for CES 2027, Samsung Electronics said it could not confirm the details.
The project is led by Samsung's RX business unit, which reports directly to DX Division President Roh Tae-moon. The hardware team and the AI software team have both been placed under a single DX Division CTO — a structure that industry watchers in Korea read as an attempt to merge the "brain" and the "body" command chains into one, cutting the friction of cross-department coordination.
Two Tracks Running in Parallel
The in-house track is building a general-purpose humanoid platform. Two technical directions have been disclosed so far: hip joint design, and a new generation of AI-driven robotic hands for motion control. The two correspond to the hardest problems in humanoid robotics — one is load-bearing and walking stability, the other is dexterous manipulation.
The second track runs through subsidiary Rainbow Robotics, focused on industrial use cases. Its dual-arm RB-Y2 robot showed a prototype in April, and an upgraded version could appear as early as November at Robot World 2026.
The division of labor looks clear: the subsidiary works out engineering problems like dual-arm coordination, grasping, and on-site deployment in factory settings, while the parent company handles the full-body form factor and longer-term general-purpose capability.
A Domestic Collision, First
Hyundai Motor Group, which owns Boston Dynamics, disclosed progress on its Atlas robot earlier this year. Two Korean conglomerates now find themselves head-to-head in humanoid robotics — a rare occurrence in Korean manufacturing.
Zooming out, the three forces in this humanoid robotics race each have their own gap:
- Automakers like Tesla and Hyundai have mass-production engineering capability and ready-made factory-line scenarios
- Electronics giants like Samsung and LG have sensors, chips, displays, and consumer electronics distribution channels
- Chinese manufacturers have supply chain and cost advantages, accounting for roughly 90% of global shipments, but buyer satisfaction sits at just over 20%
What Samsung lacks is a scenario. It has no auto plants, and its own consumer electronics lines are already highly automated — for now, there's no must-have slot for a humanoid robot inside Samsung's own operations. A CES debut can solve the visibility problem, but not this one.
What Kind of Milestone Is January 2027
From now to CES 2027 is a little over four months away.
By CES convention, what gets shown at this stage is a prototype, not a production model. Three things are worth watching: whether it can walk autonomously, how complex a task its hands can perform, and whether the demo is teleoperated or run autonomously. The first two determine hardware maturity, and the third determines software maturity — and it's usually the one most easily masked by stage effects.
Samsung has not disclosed the prototype's height, weight, degrees of freedom, or target price this time, nor has it mentioned a mass-production timeline. More information is public about the RB-Y2 line, but that robot has a wheeled base and dual arms — a form factor far removed from a general-purpose humanoid.
Korean media's explanation is that placing hardware and software under one executive is meant to shorten the iteration cycle. Whether that holds up will get its first test in Las Vegas four months from now.
Sources: The Seoul Economic Daily (English edition), CocoLoop; Samsung Electronics has not confirmed its CES 2027 exhibition plans, prototype specifications and production timeline remain undisclosed, and industry shipment and satisfaction figures are drawn from public industry statistics.