“From raw-material procurement to design, production, quality and supply, the future MachinaRocks envisions is ‘fully autonomous manufacturing’ powered by artificial intelligence,” CEO Yoon Sung-ho said.
Speaking at the company’s headquarters in Seoul’s Gangnam district, Yoon described the goal as an expansion of “physical AI” — AI that operates directly in real-world environments — across industry. With physical AI drawing global attention, including from Nvidia and Tesla, Yoon said MachinaRocks is proving what is possible through deployments in the field.
“People often think first of humanoids or self-driving cars, but it starts by making the countless machines already in factories and industrial sites intelligent,” he said. “From that perspective, manufacturing and defense are the areas that can become reality first.”
Founded in 2017, MachinaRocks has grown by supplying AI solutions tailored to industrial settings that demand high performance, reliability and security, including automotive, semiconductors and defense. In AI-based design and optimization, it ranks second among South Korean companies in the number of patents held, the company said. It has recently begun demand forecasting for institutional investors as it moves forward with an initial public offering, drawing attention as part of this year’s wave of “AI IPOs.”
Defense is another pillar of MachinaRocks’ push for autonomous manufacturing, Yoon said, because it also requires AI to function in physical environments. “Defense is not a question of whether we can do it well — it is an area we must do,” he said. He cited results in improving maintenance efficiency and said the work is expanding toward an “AI staff officer” role that helps with operational decisions on the battlefield.
As low-cost weapons systems such as drones spread, Yoon said, performance increasingly depends less on hardware and more on how precisely systems are controlled and operated. In that structure, the AI onboard and how effectively it is used can determine differences in combat power, he said. To respond, he said the company plans to expand battlefield applications based on a tentative “Defense AI OS.”
Even so, AI adoption in industrial settings often fails to cross the “valley of death” — the gap between technical validation and commercialization — because systems do not perform as expected in real-world conditions, Yoon said. “AI performance is doubling every seven months, but in complex and unpredictable environments like factories or combat zones, it is still not easy to apply,” he said.
MachinaRocks has focused on implementing physical AI in practice, including by applying more than 6,000 AI models in industrial sites to build data, he said. At the center is its in-house AI operating system, Runway, designed to work across different equipment and environments — like iOS or Android — with industry-specific AI applications built on top.
Yoon said the platform approach is changing the business model. Projects that once took more than a year can now be built in one to six months, he said. “We are shifting from a services-centered model to a platform structure that can generate recurring revenue,” he said, adding that profitability should improve as reusable applications increase.
On security — a sensitive issue in manufacturing and defense — Yoon said there is no room for compromise. “In these fields, 60% to 70% accuracy is meaningless; precision and reliability close to 99% are required,” he said. “Situations where confidential data leaks outside or AI goes beyond its control range can never be allowed.” He said Runway is designed to operate in closed networks to meet such mission-critical requirements.
MachinaRocks is also accelerating overseas expansion. Within a year of entering Japan, it signed four contracts with major manufacturers, and in Europe it is working with a subsidiary of Germany’s Kuka Robotics, Yoon said. He said references built with South Korean companies that lead in autos, batteries and semiconductors are a strong trust asset in global markets, and that overseas firms are moving quickly because the technology has already been proven.
Yoon described Japan as a large manufacturing market with relatively low AI use, where demand could grow quickly. He cited Japanese government efforts to expand AI adoption and develop talent as factors accelerating digital transformation, and said MachinaRocks aims to rapidly build a customer base centered on major local manufacturers.
Funds raised through the IPO will be used to advance technology and secure an early position in global markets, he said. A tentative “dark factory OS,” intended to let AI autonomously run an entire plant, is a core technology for realizing fully autonomous manufacturing, he said, with investment planned for research and development and for expanding global bases including North America and Japan.
Yoon also set a profitability target. “If expansion based on the AI OS proceeds as planned, reaching break-even in 2027 is possible,” he said. “Given our current growth and market demand, it is a realistic goal.”
“Physical AI is not a distant future — it has already begun,” Yoon said. “From factories to the battlefield, we will create a new industry standard through AI that operates in real environments.”
* This article has been translated by AI.
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