Acquiring Korean Manufacturing Franchises
A franchise is an established production system (which when followed produces the exact same product according to specifications). One example of this is a McDonalds restaurant franchise which is a system for producing an exact product right down to the thousands of a gram. When a company spends years in development of a product or system then all of their combined development experience can be accessed through a franchise to produce the exact same product.
Korea has helped numerous nations abroad internationally and has even setup production operations in various nations so that these foreign countries can produce Korean weapons systems for their own national defense. These production systems are part of a franchise system authorized by the Korean development companies to manufacture their products and systems abroad under franchise agreement.
South Korean Industry Tempered by War
South Korea had been at war for over 70 years and therefore must be in a constant state of readiness. This war-preparedness has caused them to excel in war industries being able to mass produce items needed for defense while under an emergency time frame. This self-survival ability has translated into South Korea becoming a worldwide military arms provider.
Hyundai Purchase of Boston Dynamics
Boston Dynamics was created in 1992 as an offshoot of MIT. This company has accumulated over thirty years of robot engineering and robotics design experience. The company was acquired by Google in 2013 and then purchased by the Japanese investment company “Softbank” in 2017. Then in 2021 Korean Hyundai company purchased a controlling stake in this company.
Unless robots can be manufactured at scale – then they cannot have any real meaningful use in serving humanity. But when Boston Dynamics was purchased by Google – there was no hope of robots being produced at scale because Google is only a software and data storage company without any manufacturing or production capabilities. When Softbank purchased the company there was also little possibility of robot production (occurring at scale) because Softbank is just an investment company and has no production or manufacturing capabilities. This is why when Boston Dynamics was purchased by Hyundai – this was a match made in heaven because Hyundai does have manufacturing capabilities and is already manufacturing autos at scale. All of the same principles used in auto manufacturing and assembly can also be applied to the mass production of robots.