Big Tech's $590 Billion AI Push Accelerates Labor Shift to Robots

**AI PRISM* Customized Economic Briefing**

*Editor's note: 'AI PRISM' (Personalized Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an AI-powered customized news recommendation and summarization service developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. It selects and provides six tailored news items for each reader type.*

1. Companies Obsessed with Productivity: 'Labor Shift' Timeline Advances

AI infrastructure capital expenditure by Big Tech's four giants is projected to surge from $374.6 billion last year to $590 billion this year. Investment in humanoid startups is exploding accordingly. Approximately $7 billion flowed into autonomous robot startups last year. This year, $17.9 billion has poured in before the first quarter ended. Tesla's decision to convert its Fremont plant to Optimus production signals an accelerating shift of production labor from humans to robots.

2. "One Robot Replaces Three or More Workers"—Operating Costs Half of Human Wages

MIT Professor Daron Acemoglu analyzed that "each additional robot eliminates approximately 3.3 to 6.6 jobs." Current operating costs for early-stage commercial humanoids run $10-12 per hour—40-60% of human hourly wages of $30. Costs could fall to $5 per hour over five years of operation. Goldman Sachs estimates humanoid manufacturing costs have dropped approximately 40% since 2023, with investment payback periods shortened by 2-3 years. Boston Dynamics' Atlas demonstrated self-battery replacement capability at CES 2026, opening the possibility of 24-hour continuous operation.

3. Anthropic Prepares Landing: Global AI Big Three Clash in Korea

Anthropic, developer of AI model Claude, has begun hiring for five positions in Korea, establishing its third Asia-Pacific overseas office after India and Japan. Last month, the company appointed legal team member Scott Alexander Booth as Korean corporation director and is pursuing local country manager recruitment. As of January, ChatGPT's domestic monthly active users reached approximately 14.29 million—roughly 277 times higher than 2023 levels. In Anthropic's published economic index, Korea ranked seventh globally for Claude usage. With OpenAI and Google joining the fray, competition among the global Big Three for Korea's B2B AI market is intensifying.

4. Baemin Captures 90% of Cheogajip Chicken Franchisees—Delivery Platform War Begins?

Approximately 1,100 of 1,254 franchisees (88%) have expressed willingness to participate in Baemin's relaunched "Baemin Only" promotion with Cheogajip Yangnyeom Chicken. Franchisees using no delivery platforms other than Baemin receive commission cuts from around 7% to 3.5%. The pilot runs through May. Coupang Eats has countered by offering matching 3.5% commission rates to select Seoul and metropolitan area franchisees. While reduced commission burdens for franchise headquarters and franchisees are expected as competition for major franchise partnerships intensifies, concerns about potential sales declines for franchisees facing either-or situations are also emerging.

5. AI Embedded in Daily Life: Ultra-Low-Power Semiconductors and Humanoids Rise

The Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT) selected this year's 10 promising industries under the theme "Era of Embedded Intelligence." Selections include intelligent edge system semiconductors, sensor fusion intelligent displays, humanoids, and autonomous agent AI. As generative AI proliferation is projected to more than double power consumption from 460 TWh in 2022 to 1,000 TWh this year, edge AI semiconductors have emerged as key to power savings. The humanoid market is projected to grow at 47.9% annually, expanding to $34.12 billion by 2030.

6. Corning, After 20 Years of Losses, Becomes AI Era's Cinderella

U.S.-based Corning maintained investment through 20 years of losses in its fiber optic cable business to ultimately secure a $6 billion supply contract with Meta, emerging as "AI's Cinderella." Corning built the "Corning Way"—designing cable manufacturing machinery in-house. Despite six consecutive quarters of post-pandemic revenue decline, the company added 4,000-5,000 new hires annually, growing its workforce to 56,000. With ChatGPT's 2023 emergence driving surging data center demand, fiber optic cables found their moment. Corning is now reviewing "co-packaged optics" technology to mount fiber optics directly onto Nvidia servers. Corning's stock price stood at $122.16 as of May 6—more than double its level from one year ago. UBS, Morgan Stanley and other securities firms have successively raised their target prices.