Seoul AI Robot Show hits the bullseye as amazed attendees take on the future

“Are you ready? Three, two, one, go!”

The referee’s shout rang out as cameras clicked furiously and spectators raised their phones. An arrow hit a revolving target at Coex in southern Seoul on Tuesday, eliciting applause from the crowd.

The scene resembled a familiar archery contest, but the ones drawing the bows weren’t athletes.

They were robots.

The match was held as part of the inaugural Seoul AI Robot Show, hosted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government and organized by the Seoul Business Agency.

Robotics teams from around the world gathered to compete in a humanoid robot sports tournament, one of the event’s headline attractions.

The show, which opened Tuesday and runs through Thursday, brings together 73 robotics companies from Korea and abroad. Coinciding with Smart Life Week, the city’s annual ICT expo, the event aims to broaden the public’s understanding of artificial intelligence by staging competitions, demonstrations and hands-on activities.

A quadrupedal robot by Unitree Robotics stands up and draws a heart for visitors during the Seoul AI Robot Show at Coex in southern Seoul on Sept. 30.

CHO JUNG-WOO

Robots step onto the field

On one side of the hall on the second floor, the atmosphere felt more like a gym than a trade show.

Robotics enthusiasts of all ages, from elementary school students to graduate researchers, hunched over laptops as they adjusted their programs and tweaked their machines. Teams tested their robots by letting them sprint, pull arrows or practice lifting weights.

A humanoid robot fires an arrow during the humanoid robot sports competition at the inaugural Seoul AI Robot Show, hosted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, at Coex in Seoul’s Gangnam District on Sept. 30.

CHO JUNG-WOO

The humanoid sports competition features four events: archery, sprinting, weightlifting and biseokchigi, a traditional Korean game of striking stones.

Twenty-two teams took part, including groups from Taiwan and Indonesia. The Federation of International Robot-soccer Association (FIRA), which runs the annual RoboWorld Cup, hosted this year in Daegu, oversaw the matches.

Teams tallied their scores cumulatively, as robots took turns aiming at spinning targets. 

Phones shot up as spectators tried to capture the moment. Among them was a five-year-old boy, wide-eyed as he clutched his mother’s hand.

On the other side of the venue, students from 10 Korean universities, including Kookmin, Hongik and Dongguk University, prepared for the extreme robot challenge. Their machines had to navigate stairs, scattered bricks, uneven ground and even bursts of smoke.

One team, RO:BIT from Kwangwoon University, rehearsed on Tuesday with a robot designed for emergency deployment. Sometimes teammates guided it by remote control; other times, it moved autonomously.

“Our robot uses object-recognition technology,” said Byeon Jung-wook, a junior who leads the team, adding that the robot is also capable of lifting objects and pressing buttons with its arms.

“During rehearsal, we let it learn new features and adapt — whether it’s recognizing an obstacle or adjusting to a different ground surface.”

An extreme robot rehearses climbing stairs ahead of a contest at the Seoul AI Robot Show at Coex in southern Seoul on Sept. 30.

CHO JUNG-WOO

The team has already made its mark on the competition circuit. It won the intelligence category of the humanoid robot sports high-tech league at last year’s RobotWorld contest and represented Korea at RoboCup 2024 in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.

The preliminary round on Wednesday will set the stage for the final round on Thursday.

Innovation meets entertainment

While competitions drew serious concentration and bursts of applause, other zones leaned into spectacle and fun.

In one corner, YouTuber Horse King, who runs a channel with over 1.7 million subscribers, competed against visitors wearing a robot exoskeleton in a race to move heavy racks. The goal was to beat his record of 22 racks in 100 seconds.

Cheers erupted as volunteers tried their luck, running back and forth transferring racks. Their moves were lightened by spring-powered exoskeletons developed by Angel Robotics, designed to reduce strain.

“This was a lot of fun,” said Jacky Baltes, chair of FIRA, after joining the challenge.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity for people to experience new technology. This exoskeleton doesn’t use motors or batteries, only springs. If we can adapt this to humanoid robots, we’ll be able to design more powerful ones.”

Elsewhere, children crowded to play a Korean board game called omok against AI, a scene reminiscent of the 2015 match between professional Go player Lee Se-dol and Google’s AlphaGo. This reporter, nostalgic for childhood, tried the game on the lowest difficulty setting but still lost both rounds.

The AI detected the stones’ positions using the machine’s cameras and sensors embedded in the board.

Nearby, another crowd gathered to watch people compete against a robotic arm threading a needle. A mother beat the machine easily, but her young son failed and left looking more impressed than disappointed.

Such participatory events reflect Seoul’s strategy to make robotics approachable.

“We designed content around direct experience so that people don’t just see robots as abstract technology but as something they can touch and use,” said Joo Yong-tae, Seoul’s deputy mayor for the economy.

“This kind of public-centered programming breaks the stereotype that robots are distant and instead offers a glimpse of a future society where humans and robots live side by side.”

Alongside the public attractions, 25 robotics companies are holding consultations with 11 investors. 

On Wednesday, robotics experts will gather for a conference on Seoul’s future in the era of robots, featuring renowned mechanical engineering and robotics professors: MIT's Kim Sang-bae, UCLA's Dennis Hong and KAIST’s Gong Kyung-chul.

BY CHO JUNG-WOO [[email protected]]