NC AI and Hyundai Rotem to Develop 'Brain' for Defense Robots

NC AI is partnering with Hyundai Rotem to develop advanced unmanned defense robot technology. The collaboration aims to create a sophisticated system of manned and unmanned robots tailored for future battlefield conditions.

Together, they have secured a national R&D project from the Agency for Defense Development (ADD) focused on an integrated simulator and modular robot system powered by physical artificial intelligence. This initiative seeks to organically control diverse unmanned robots in future combat scenarios and minimize the gap between simulations and reality through a digital twin simulator.

NC AI will spearhead the development of the robot's core "World Model" technology. This system simulates robot behavior, learns from environmental changes, and accounts for physical laws. Its primary goal is to reduce the "Sim-to-Real Gap", the discrepancy between simulated actions and real-world performance, by minimizing physical variables and potential malfunctions when robots are deployed.

Leveraging its proprietary 3D generative AI and high-precision virtual world-building capabilities, NC AI plans to simulate complex terrains and rapidly changing wartime situations. This will enable efficient generation of synthetic data crucial for robot training. The company previously unveiled its "World Foundation Model" (WFM) in March, a key technology for robot intelligence, which reportedly achieves competitive performance using significantly less GPU resources than comparable global models.

"We will lead the acceleration of South Korea's defense AI transformation (AX) by developing the best physical AI simulator that perfectly connects virtual and reality, based on NC AI's unique lightweight World Model," said Lee Yeon-soo, CEO of NC AI.

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We will lead the acceleration of South Korea's defense AI transformation (AX) by developing the best physical AI simulator that perfectly connects virtual and reality, based on NC AI's unique lightweight World Model.