Amazon Web Services (AWS) will support its customers' physical AI development in line with the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence. With plans to invest approximately 12 trillion won in Korea by 2031, the company aims to drive the adoption of physical AI among Korean enterprises.
"AI is advancing day by day and leading the changes of a new future," Ham Ki-ho, country manager of AWS Korea, said in his keynote speech at the AWS Summit Seoul 2026 held at COEX in Gangnam, Seoul, on Thursday. "Generative AI, which first emerged just four to five years ago, is now expanding into agentic AI that autonomously judges and executes tasks, into AI DLC (AI-Driven Development Lifecycle) that transforms development methods, and into physical AI that extends into the physical world."
Ham particularly emphasized Korea's potential to stand at the center of physical AI. "Korea is a country with a dynamic ecosystem capable of developing physical AI across AI chip design, robot foundation models, and manufacturing," he said. "Various Korean companies including Hyundai Robotics, Confeeg, and Realworld are collaborating with AWS in the physical AI field."
"To accelerate this trend, we will launch the Physical AI Frontier Program," he added. "Through technical support from AWS's dedicated team across the entire process from data collection to model training, simulation, and edge inference, we will connect companies with each other and serve as a bridge for their global expansion." AWS is highlighting its hands-on experience operating more than 1 million robots at Amazon fulfillment centers and its end-to-end services spanning from data collection to edge inference.
Ham also introduced Samsung Electronics as a case of agentic AI utilizing AWS infrastructure, and LG Electronics and Olive Young as examples of AI DLC adoption. According to AWS Korea, Samsung Electronics built an autonomous cloud operations agent based on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore on its Samsung Account platform, reducing failure recovery time by more than 90%. LG Electronics' MS Division improved productivity more than twofold by adopting AWS's AI DLC, while Olive Young completed MVPs (minimum viable products) for five projects during a three-day workshop.
John Felton, chief financial officer (CFO) of AWS, who spoke next, said, "The large-scale investment AWS is making in Korea is not simply an infrastructure expansion." He added, "Korea is one of the strategically important markets, equipped with world-class network infrastructure and an industrial ecosystem spanning semiconductors and manufacturing." Last year, AWS CEO Matt Garman announced plans for an additional investment of approximately 7 trillion won in Korea by 2031. With this, AWS's cumulative investment in Korea from 2018 to 2031 is expected to reach 12.6 trillion won.
Jason Bennett, vice president of AWS Global Startups, introduced AWS's latest agentic tools, including the AI-based development tool "Kiro" and the business agentic application "Amazon Quick." Kim Sung-hoon, CEO of Upstage, and Kim Hwan, chief technology officer (CTO) of CJ Olive Young, also joined the keynote to share service cases utilizing AWS infrastructure.
AWS Summit Seoul, now in its 12th edition, is Korea's largest AI and cloud conference. This year marks the 20th anniversary of AWS launching its cloud services with the release of Amazon S3, its first storage service, in 2006. The event, running through Friday, will feature more than 150 lectures and demo exhibitions. Approximately 25,000 attendees are expected.
