Samsung has created a dedicated robotics division called RX, short for Robotics eXperience, basing the new unit at its Seoul R&D campus in Umyeon, South Korea. The division will be led by Executive Vice President Dongkun Lee, who joined Samsung in May and previously headed Hyundai's robotics strategy, including oversight of Boston Dynamics. Samsung plans to begin manufacturing humanoid robots in 2026 and will invest approximately 19 trillion Korean won (about $13 billion USD) to develop production facilities in Gumi, Korea for that purpose Engadget. The company also intends to establish robotics research hubs in the United States, China, and Japan Reuters.

The establishment of RX was reported by multiple outlets on July 21, 2026. The Business Times placed the division's primary base at Samsung's Seoul research and development campus in Umyeon The Business Times. CNBC corroborated the 19 trillion won investment figure and the Gumi manufacturing focus CNBC.

The leadership appointment gives the division a leader with direct experience scaling a major robotics portfolio. Dongkun Lee's tenure at Hyundai included strategy oversight for Boston Dynamics, the bipedal and quadrupedal robotics manufacturer that Hyundai acquired and has continued to develop. At Samsung, he holds the title of Executive Vice President and is responsible for RX's overall strategy.

The Gumi investment is notable for its scale and specificity. Gumi is already a established Samsung manufacturing center, and the 19 trillion won commitment signals intent to build out dedicated humanoid production lines rather than repurposing existing consumer electronics assembly infrastructure. The target of beginning humanoid manufacturing in 2026 aligns the timeline with the current calendar year, suggesting that Samsung intends to move from division formation to physical output within a compressed window.

The planned research hubs in the US, China, and Japan indicate a globally distributed R&D strategy. Each of those three countries hosts deep existing talent pools in robotics, perception systems, and actuator design. Locating research nodes in all three markets positions Samsung to recruit across distinct robotics ecosystems rather than concentrating all technical development in Seoul.

Looking at what this means for the competitive landscape, Samsung's entry into humanoid manufacturing places it alongside a small set of companies pursuing volume production of bipedal robots. The combination of a large-scale capital commitment, a leader with proven robotics portfolio experience, and a distributed international research footprint suggests that Samsung is treating humanoid robotics as a volume manufacturing category rather than a research project.

Worth flagging is the velocity of the plan. Forming a division, committing 19 trillion won in manufacturing investment, and targeting production within the same calendar year would be an aggressive timeline in any hardware category. Humanoid robotics, in particular, involves integration challenges across actuation, power density, perception, and control systems that have historically made production timelines difficult to predict. Whether Samsung can meet its 2026 manufacturing target will depend on how quickly the new division can translate R&D into validated, manufacturable designs.

The broader context here is that Samsung is bringing its core competency in consumer and industrial electronics manufacturing to bear on a robotics market that has been dominated by research-oriented firms and low-volume producers. The company's existing supply chain depth in batteries, displays, sensors, and semiconductor fabrication gives it structural advantages in vertical integration that few robotics-only companies can match. If humanoid robots follow anything like the cost-curve trajectory of earlier consumer hardware categories, manufacturing scale and component integration will matter as much as the underlying robotics IP.

The choice of Dongkun Lee to lead RX also signals something about Samsung's strategic intent. Lee's background at Hyundai involved overseeing robotics strategy at the portfolio level, including Boston Dynamics. That experience is distinct from leading a single-product robotics team; it involves decisions about which robotics categories to enter, how to scale them, and how to integrate them into a broader industrial conglomerate. Bringing that kind of strategic experience into Samsung suggests the company is thinking about RX as a multi-product division rather than a single-platform effort.

Samsung's announcement does not specify which humanoid form factors or use cases the initial Gumi production lines will target. The company has not disclosed technical specifications, target markets, or initial product categories for the humanoid robots it intends to manufacture. What is confirmed is the manufacturing intent, the investment level, the leadership structure, and the geographic scope of the research footprint.