Robot that helped douse Notre Dame fire to enter Korean market as Hancom targets physical AI

Hancom is making its full entry into the physical AI market.

The company is bringing French robotics firm Shark Robotics and its unmanned firefighting robot Colossus to South Korea. Shark Robotics gained global recognition in 2019 when Colossus operated for more than 10 hours in temperatures reaching 900 degrees Celsius to help extinguish the fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Hancom Lifecare announced Thursday that it has signed a five-year domestic distribution and technology cooperation agreement with Shark Robotics, combining the French firm's world-class robot technology with Hancom's existing fire-sector sales network.

The partnership goes beyond equipment supply: Hancom's proprietary Agentic OS will also be installed in the robots, giving the company a technology foundation to control the intelligence of industrial robots.

Under the agreement, Hancom Lifecare secured exclusive domestic distribution rights for Shark Robotics' firefighting robots for five years, along with sales rights for the French company's broader robot product lineup.

The flagship model being introduced to South Korea, Colossus, is a heavy-duty robot weighing 500 kilograms with a payload capacity of 800 kilograms. It can discharge up to 3,000 liters of water per minute and be remotely operated from up to 1 kilometer away. The robot is equipped with a continuous-track system capable of hauling heavy fire hoses over steep inclines, stairs and debris, as well as a high-performance thermal imaging camera.

The mid-size model, Rhino Protect, weighs approximately 200 kilograms with a 200-kilogram payload. Designed to fit through standard doorways in ordinary buildings, it is built for suppressing fires in confined spaces such as narrow urban alleyways, complex factory interiors and below-ground electric vehicle parking garages.

Hancom Lifecare will handle not only sales but also on-site training, maintenance and after-sales support. Under an agreement between the two companies, products can be supplied under Hancom's own brand, with Korean-language menus and control interfaces, as well as customization to meet domestic standards.

Hancom's Agentic OS will also be integrated into the robots. The operating system controls and manages multiple AI agents within a single unified framework. The two companies plan to complete joint development of an application interface linking Agentic OS to Colossus and Rhino Protect by Dec. 31.

Once the OS integration is complete, AI will analyze in real time the data collected by the robots and instantly relay information on hazard zones and optimal entry routes to the command chain. The company said the system will sharply cut the response delays that arose when firefighters had to read and interpret raw data themselves.

Hancom said it intends to use the partnership as a springboard to establish Agentic OS as the standard operating system controlling the intelligence of a wide range of industrial robots.

"This partnership is a core group-level synergy project that combines Hancom's Agentic OS technology with the field network Hancom Lifecare has built over half a century," a Hancom Group official said. "Beyond AI transformation in corporate work environments, we will take the lead in the physical AI market — controlling the hardware at disaster sites and industrial facilities."