Hyundai Motor Group chief unveils 'AI future city' vision, forges alliances with Nvidia, Waymo and Google

Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Euisun Chung unveiled a vision for an "AI future city" in which vehicles, robots, factories and energy infrastructure are connected in real time through artificial intelligence.

The strategy calls for the group to move beyond its identity as a traditional automaker and transform into a physical AI solutions company, realizing that ambition through alliances with global tech giants including Nvidia, Waymo and Google DeepMind.

Chung laid out Hyundai Motor Group's physical AI vision and execution strategy Friday (local time) at the San Francisco AI Summit, held in San Francisco under the chairmanship of President Lee Jae Myung.

About 150 people attended the event, including Chung and other top executives from major Korean companies, alongside Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Broadcom CEO Hock Tan.

"Hyundai Motor Group is moving beyond the boundaries of traditional automotive manufacturing and is now pursuing a transformation into a physical AI solutions company encompassing autonomous driving, robotics and AI factories," Chung said.

He added that the group's physical AI vision begins with making individual devices such as vehicles and robots intelligent, advances to making specific spaces such as AI factories intelligent, and ultimately aims to achieve city-level integrated intelligence in which an entire urban infrastructure is organically connected and operated.

The AI future city Hyundai Motor Group envisions is one where vehicles, robots, production facilities, logistics networks and energy infrastructure exchange information through AI and operate with maximum efficiency.

The first step is making vehicles and robots intelligent — equipping vehicles with autonomous driving capabilities and enabling robots to assess their surroundings and carry out tasks independently. The group will then build "AI factories" that use AI to integrate and manage all aspects of production, logistics and quality control.

The ultimate goal is to connect mobility, robots and energy in real time across an entire city, optimizing traffic and logistics flows as well as energy consumption.

Chung's physical AI strategy goes beyond simply making vehicles and robots smarter. The final objective is to link manufacturing sites through AI and create a structure in which a city's entire transportation, logistics and energy infrastructure optimizes itself autonomously.

Chung cited Hyundai Motor Group's manufacturing competitiveness, robotics technology and vast real-world data as the foundations that will give the group a differentiated edge in the physical AI era.

The first strength is world-class manufacturing competitiveness. Hyundai Motor Group has operated global production bases for decades, accumulating expertise in quality control and supply chain management. That foundation allows the group to apply newly developed AI technology to actual products and production processes and verify and scale it rapidly.

The second is robotics capability. Hyundai Motor Group is developing robotics as a core future business, with Boston Dynamics at the center of that effort.

Key examples include Boston Dynamics' quadruped robot Spot, its intelligent logistics robot Stretch, and the next-generation mobile robot platform MObile VErsatile and Dexterous, or MOVED, developed by Hyundai Motor Group's Robotics Lab. The humanoid robot Atlas is highlighted as a flagship example of physical AI, designed to work alongside humans in manufacturing, logistics and mobility environments.

The third strength is a "data flywheel." Data generated on factory floors, in vehicles, in logistics operations and through robot deployment feeds AI training; the improved algorithms are then redeployed in the field, creating a virtuous cycle of performance gains.

Because Hyundai Motor Group simultaneously operates large-scale manufacturing sites and has experience running mobility, robotics and service operations, it can continuously capture data from the real world — enabling AI to learn and improve on actual industrial sites rather than remaining confined to virtual environments.

Hyundai Motor Group plans to accelerate its physical AI transformation by combining its in-house manufacturing and robotics capabilities with AI technology from global tech giants.

"The strengths Hyundai Motor Group possesses — manufacturing capability, robotics technology and data — combined with the advantages of big tech companies can create a new innovation ecosystem for the physical AI era," Chung said.

With Nvidia, the collaboration will cover AI infrastructure, manufacturing digital twins and autonomous driving.

Hyundai Motor Group has signed a contract with Nvidia to supply 50,000 Blackwell GPUs. Building on a memorandum of understanding signed last year to advance domestic physical AI capabilities, the two companies are also working to establish a robotics application center for Hyundai Motor Group and an AI technology center for Nvidia.

The two sides also plan to cooperate on expanding domestic physical AI infrastructure and training specialized talent.

In manufacturing, the group will use Nvidia's digital twin platform to replicate actual factories and production equipment in virtual space, allowing it to verify processes and robot movements in advance and improve operational efficiency.

In autonomous driving, Nvidia's automotive semiconductors, sensors and computing architecture will be integrated with Hyundai Motor Group's vehicle platforms to advance the technology further.

Hyundai Motor Group is also deepening its collaboration with Waymo, the global autonomous driving company.

Since signing a strategic partnership in 2024, Hyundai Motor Group and Waymo have been pursuing an autonomous driving foundry business that includes contract manufacturing of self-driving vehicles.

Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America in Georgia will produce Ioniq 5 vehicles for Waymo's fleet. Those vehicles will feature autonomous driving-specific specifications, including redundant steering, braking and power systems, as well as enhanced functional safety and cybersecurity.

Boston Dynamics is partnering with Google DeepMind to develop next-generation humanoid robots.

For robots to perform complex tasks in real work environments and collaborate with humans, they need not only sophisticated hardware but also AI models and learning systems capable of understanding and making judgments about their surroundings.

The plan combines Boston Dynamics' robot hardware expertise with Google DeepMind's AI capabilities to increase robot autonomy and enable flexible responses even in complex environments.

On that foundation, Hyundai Motor Group aims to build a production system capable of manufacturing 30,000 robots annually in the United States by 2028. The next-generation electric Atlas development model will be deployed first at Hyundai Motor Group production sites including HMGMA to verify performance before the rollout is expanded in stages.

Hyundai Motor Group and Nvidia will also build a shared robot reference platform for use by domestic universities, research institutes and startups.

The robot reference platform is an open ecosystem that provides research robot models and a standardized hardware and software development environment. The aim is to lower the barriers for research institutions and startups that have the technology and ideas but have struggled to secure the means to build robots or set up testing environments.

Universities, research institutes and startups will be able to use the common robot platform to develop physical AI technology and verify performance in real-world settings. Hyundai Motor Group said it intends to use the initiative to support domestic robotics innovation, talent development and commercialization simultaneously.

"The results of our collaboration with big tech companies must serve as a foundation for the growth of the domestic physical AI industry," Chung said. "Hyundai Motor Group plans to build an open ecosystem to advance robotics and AI technology in Korea."

Hyundai Motor Group will pair its physical AI push with major domestic investment.

The group plans to invest about 9 trillion won ($6.12 billion) in the Saemangeum area of North Jeolla Province to develop the "Saemangeum AI Valley," a complex encompassing an AI data center, a robot manufacturing cluster, a water electrolysis plant and an AI hydrogen city.

The robot manufacturing cluster at Saemangeum will produce Hyundai Motor Group's own robots while also serving as a "robot foundry" — manufacturing robot products on behalf of small and medium-sized enterprises that lack production experience and facilities.

In the Yeongnam region, the group will invest a total of 42 trillion won over the next 10 years, developing an advanced industrial hub that brings together an AI-based manufacturing center, a future aviation and space industry, and sustainable energy infrastructure.

Hyundai Motor Group intends to concentrate in Saemangeum and the Yeongnam region the data, energy, robot production and technology demonstration capabilities that physical AI requires. The group said the initiative will also strengthen domestic industrial competitiveness and contribute to balanced regional development and job creation.