CJ Logistics said on September 3 that it has put two dual-arm humanoid robots to work on a packaging line at its Yangji Olive Young distribution center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province — the first time the country's largest logistics operator has used humanoids in a live logistics process rather than a pilot.
From Gunpo pilot to Olive Young line
The Yangji deployment follows more than a year of field testing at CJ Logistics' Gunpo fulfillment center. On the Olive Young line, the two humanoids do a narrow but real job: they place cushioning material inside boxes before those boxes are sealed and shipped to beauty and health customers, freeing human workers to handle the higher-mix packing tasks.
Robot foundation model as the "brain"
Unlike fixed automation designed for a single SKU, the humanoids run on CJ Logistics' own Robot Foundation Model (RFM), which fuses camera and sensor data with simulation to help the robots recognise unfamiliar products, plan how to grasp them and adjust when boxes or packing materials change. CJ Logistics said the goal is to reuse each day's live packing footage as new training data, then extend the same model to picking, sorting and inspection so that one humanoid can eventually cover several logistics processes in sequence.
Robotis, Aidin Robotics and RealWorld AI on the stack
CJ Logistics is combining hardware from Seoul-based humanoid maker Robotis, grippers from tactile-manipulation startup Aidin Robotics and RFM technology from RealWorld AI. The company is also participating in government-backed programs to develop humanlike robotic hands and autonomous logistics systems, betting that Korean-built physical AI can catch up with US and Chinese leaders on real warehouse work rather than trade-show demos.
Korean logistics races the humanoid clock
The move puts CJ Logistics alongside global adopters such as Amazon, GXO and Mercado Libre, whose warehouses are now running Agility Robotics' Digit humanoids, and China's fast-scaling Unitree and UBTech deployments. It also lands in the same week that Korean firms are pushing physical AI onto the world stage, from LG's move to Samsung Foundry for AI home chips to Seoul's ongoing push around quantum cloud services. If the RFM performs on real Olive Young orders, CJ Logistics thinks it can bootstrap a general-purpose Korean humanoid stack — cushioning boxes today, pick-and-pack tomorrow, whole warehouses within a few years.
Reporting based on coverage from The Korea Times, Seoul Economic Daily and The Korea Herald.