South Korea pushes to localize robotaxi parts, build future-vehicle ecosystem

South Korea's automakers, parts suppliers, automotive semiconductor firms and autonomous driving companies have agreed to join forces to localize core future-vehicle technologies — including robotaxi systems — that currently rely heavily on foreign sources. The partners plan to pursue cooperative efforts aimed at commercializing key technologies and achieving supply chain independence.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said Wednesday it signed a cooperation MOU on "building a future-vehicle ecosystem" with automakers, large parts suppliers, large and small fabless chipmakers, mobility platform and autonomous driving companies, and a fabless industry association at Hyundai Mobis headquarters in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. A business roundtable was also held at the same venue.

The agreement marks the first concrete outcome from the AI future-vehicle subcommittee of the M.AX Alliance — a public-private partnership launched to accelerate AI transformation across the manufacturing sector — which set "building a robust future-vehicle ecosystem" as its goal.

The initiative was structured as a "growth-oriented co-prosperity model," moving beyond one-sided support arrangements to allow large companies and small or startup firms to combine their respective strengths and pursue shared growth.

Many domestic parts companies have struggled to clear the commercialization threshold despite developing technologies, largely because they lacked mass production experience and opportunities to collaborate with demand-side companies. The agreement focuses on rapidly connecting research and development outcomes to actual mass-production vehicles and markets, with a total of five MOUs signed across three sectors: mid-size complete vehicles, automotive semiconductors and robotaxis.

Under one agreement, software and autonomous driving solutions will be applied to newly developed vehicles from automakers, allowing the automakers to strengthen their autonomous driving competitiveness while technology firms gain a track record of deployment in mass-production vehicles.

In the automotive semiconductor sector — where dependence on foreign suppliers remains high — demand-side companies, large and small fabless firms, and back-end packaging companies have joined hands. They plan to collaborate across the full cycle, from chip performance verification and joint development of sensor and communications chips to chiplet technology that integrates different chips into a single package, with the aim of accelerating semiconductor localization and commercialization.

In the robotaxi sector, the partners plan to jointly establish a shared data format covering sensor placement and performance, build a common utilization framework, and push to localize key components that have been heavily dependent on foreign suppliers.

Four support institutions, including the Korea Automotive Technology Institute, will provide a package of technical, infrastructure and personnel support to help translate the agreements signed by 12 participating companies and associations — including Hyundai Mobis, KGM, LX Semicon, LG Electronics and Kakao Mobility — into tangible business outcomes.

After the roundtable, Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Kim Jung-kwan rode in a robotaxi conducting demonstration runs in the Gangnam area to assess the level of domestic autonomous driving technology. "We plan to develop a comprehensive support package so that companies in the internal combustion engine parts industry can make a stable transition into new areas such as future vehicles, robots and defense, each at a pace suited to their circumstances," he said.

Kim added that the ministry would "quickly identify and announce follow-up co-prosperity projects to drive inter-company cooperation not only in automotive semiconductors but also in data — a core asset for AI competitiveness."