Hyundai's Robotics Vision Comes Home as Spot Joins Its Seoul Headquarters

After proving itself at disaster sites, power plants and global auto factories, the four-legged robot is taking on security duties.

Hyundai has turned its Yangjae headquarters into a robot-friendly building designed for humans and machines to work side by side.

Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Chung Euisun takes the stage with Spot, Boston Dynamics’ robot dog, at CES 2022.

[Insight Korea = Yun Chan-woo]

“Robotics is no longer a distant dream. It is reality. Hyundai Motor aims to achieve great things through robotics.”

In January 2022, on the CES stage in Las Vegas, Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Chung Euisun stood beside Spot, a dog-like four-legged walking robot. At the time, Chung turned to Spot and said, “Thank you. You are a good colleague.” Spot quickly drew attention from media around the world.

Four years later, in 2026, the robotics vision Chung declared has taken concrete shape at the heart of Hyundai Motor Group: its Yangjae headquarters in Seoul. Spot, which has built up real-world experience at disaster sites and industrial facilities around the world, has now returned as a security guard responsible for employee safety.

From the New York Fire Department to Global Auto Plants

The four years Spot spent before arriving at Hyundai Motor Group’s Yangjae headquarters were not simply a collection of adoption cases. They were closer to a process of proving its usefulness across disaster sites, cultural heritage excavation areas, power plants, automobile factories and smelters. By walking where people could not easily walk and looking into places difficult for humans to inspect, Spot transformed the nickname “robot dog” into the language of industrial fieldwork.

Spot first made its presence felt in places too dangerous for people to enter. In 2022, the New York City Fire Department deployed two Spot robots at fire scenes. The goal was to obtain on-site information before rescue workers entered dangerous emergency situations. That same year, at the excavation site of Pompeii in Italy, Spot monitored narrow and unstable areas such as underground spaces and gaps between rocks. In two very different fields, rescue and preservation, Spot played the same role: checking spaces where human access was limited.

Its usefulness became even clearer at disaster sites. In April 2023, when a parking garage collapsed in New York, Spot was deployed to help secure the safety of rescue workers, search for survivors and collect information. Through remote control, it explored debris and unstable terrain, opening up areas that were difficult for humans to enter first.

Around the same time, Wien Energie in Austria deployed Spot at the Simmering power plant. Moving through stairs, grated floors and other areas avoided by conventional inspection equipment, Spot carried out about 4,000 inspections and traveled a cumulative distance of 1,600 kilometers. It was a case that showed Spot was no longer a one-off demonstration tool, but equipment capable of enduring repeated work.

The focus later shifted to industrial sites. In 2024, BMW Group formally introduced Spot at its Hams Hall engine plant in Britain, where the robot collected field data to build digital twins. In October of the same year, at a Jaguar Land Rover electric vehicle plant, Spot was given the name “Rover” and assigned to 24-hour patrols and equipment inspections. Its role expanded beyond checking dangerous zones to accumulating operational data from factories and detecting equipment abnormalities at an early stage.

Its use has also expanded beyond auto plants to smelters. In May last year, Ford introduced Spot at its Valencia plant in Spain. Using built-in sensors, the robot detected signs of abnormalities such as the smell of oil leaks and vibrations, helping speed up equipment inspections. In August of the same year, Korea Zinc’s Onsan smelter became the first smelter in the world to use Spot. Equipped with ultrasonic sensors and infrared cameras, Spot patrolled 466 inspection points as well as blind spots difficult for humans to access.

Spot Arrives in Yangjae as Hyundai Moves Toward Coexistence With Robots

After proving its durability and practicality in rough environments around the world, Spot’s next destination is Hyundai Motor Group’s Yangjae headquarters. On the 14th, Hyundai Motor Group unveiled a sweeping renovation of the headquarters into a robot-friendly building, along with three robot services: the security robot Spot, the watering robot Gardener and the delivery robot DAL-e Delivery.

The headquarters renovation and robot service launch are being viewed as a symbolic outcome of Chung’s commitment to making Hyundai a leader in physical AI. The project goes beyond a simple redesign of office space. It represents an environment, implemented first at the company’s headquarters, where robots with physical bodies can communicate and work alongside humans in everyday office settings.

The most eye-catching change is Spot’s new role. The robot that once crossed debris at fire scenes and collapsed parking garages now guards the gates of the Yangjae headquarters and performs security management duties. The Spot deployed this time is equipped with an autonomous driving module, allowing it to recognize its surroundings in real time and safely carry out patrols even among crowds.

Hyundai Motor Group has also extensively redesigned the building infrastructure so robots can blend naturally into human workspaces. The company installed robot-only elevators that allow robots to move between floors without human assistance. On the first floor, it also created robot stations where robots can return on their own to recharge when their batteries run low.

Hyundai Motor expects the renovation to create an environment where humans and robots can coexist. A Hyundai Motor Group official said, “This headquarters renovation goes beyond a simple spatial redesign. It is intended to build a practical work environment where people and robots coexist harmoniously.”

“We hope employees will directly experience the convenience of robotics technology in their daily lives and gain greater confidence in the company’s technological capabilities,” the official said.

- This article was translated by ChatGPT. (이 기사는 챗GPT가 번역했습니다.)