Samsung has stopped treating robotics as a side project. On July 20, 2026, the company folded its scattered robot research and development efforts into a single new organization: the Robotics eXperience (RX) Business Promotion Office, placed directly under CEO TM Roh.
The message is hard to miss. Rather than letting robotics live inside various teams and labs, Samsung is consolidating everything under one roof, from foundational technology work all the way to shipping actual products. Putting a CEO in charge of the division signals just how seriously the company intends to compete in a field increasingly dominated by names like Boston Dynamics and Tesla.
To run its Robotics Strategy Team, Samsung brought in Lee Dong-geon, a name that carries real weight here. During his time at Hyundai, Lee led robot strategy for Boston Dynamics — arguably the most recognizable robotics company on the planet. Hiring the person who steered strategy for those viral backflipping machines is not a subtle move.
The RX division will be headquartered at Samsung’s Seoul R&D Campus in Umyeon-dong, but the company isn’t keeping the work confined to Korea. It plans to open dedicated research hubs in the US, China and Japan, spreading its bets across the three regions that matter most for both robotics talent and manufacturing muscle.
Interestingly, Samsung isn’t chasing humanoid helpers for your living room first. The initial priority is industrial robots. The strategy is pragmatic and, frankly, smart:
- Build robots to automate Samsung’s own manufacturing lines first
- Refine the technology in-house, where the company controls every variable
- Then offer those proven systems to other manufacturers
It’s a familiar Samsung playbook. The company has long used its own vast production operations as a proving ground before selling components and systems to the wider industry — think memory chips, displays and batteries. Applying that same logic to robotics means the machines get battle-tested in some of the world’s most demanding factories before anyone else touches them.
What this doesn’t tell us, at least not yet, is when consumers might see a Samsung robot on a store shelf. There are no product names, no specs and no prices attached to this announcement — it’s an organizational move, not a product launch. But organizational moves are often the clearest window into where a company is headed, and Samsung has just pointed a very large arrow at robotics.
With a CEO at the helm, a Boston Dynamics veteran setting strategy and research hubs planned across three continents, RX looks less like an experiment and more like a long-term commitment. The industrial-first approach may not generate flashy demo videos right away, but it could give Samsung a durable foundation to build on.
