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WIRobotics Secures Approximately KRW 100 Billion (USD 68 Million) Series B Funding

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Accelerates Humanoid Commercialization and Expands from Wearables to Integrated Robotics Platforms

SEOUL, South Korea, May 14, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Global robotics company WIRobotics (Co-CEOs Yeonbaek Lee and Yongjae Kim) announced that it has completed a KRW 95 billion (approximately USD 68 million) Series B funding round. The investment comes approximately two years after the company’s Series A financing in March 2024 (KRW 13 billion) and reflects growing confidence in WIRobotics’ next-generation robotics technologies and commercialization potential.

JB Investment led the round, joined by InterVest, Hana Ventures, Smilegate Investment, SBVA, NH Investment & Securities, Company K Partners, GU Investment, and FuturePlay.

Advancing Humanoid Robotics and Physical AI

WIRobotics has been developing its humanoid robotics platform “ALLEX” based on technologies designed to understand and augment human movement. The company was recently selected for NVIDIA’s global robotics and AI development initiative, the “Physical AI Fellowship,” further validating its technological capabilities and global growth potential.

The company has identified humanoid robotics as its next major growth engine and is accelerating the development of technologies aimed at enabling human-level object manipulation and interaction capabilities. Through collaborations with AWS and NVIDIA, WIRobotics is advancing next-generation Physical AI technologies while also conducting joint research with leading domestic and global research institutions.

In parallel, the company is engaged in discussions with a global automotive manufacturer regarding manufacturing-environment-based platform validation (PoC). WIRobotics plans to launch a research-focused humanoid platform later this year, expand collaborations with global research institutions, and pursue initial commercialization alongside mass-production readiness targeted for late next year.

Commercial Validation Through WIM

The foundation of WIRobotics’ humanoid development comes from years of real-world wearable robotics deployment and accumulated user movement data.

Over the past three years, WIRobotics has built extensive real-world datasets through its wearable walking-assist robot “WIM.” Based on this data, the company has developed personalized assistive technologies optimized for individual gait patterns and physical conditions. More recently, WIRobotics expanded into software-driven services through its subscription platform “WIM Premium.”

Now entering its third year of commercialization, WIM has surpassed 3,000 cumulative units sold and expanded into key overseas markets including Europe, China, Türkiye, and Japan. Revenue has more than doubled annually, growing from KRW 560 million in 2023 to KRW 1.3 billion in 2024 and KRW 2.79 billion in 2025. In Q1 2026 alone, the company already exceeded its full-year 2024 revenue.

WIM has also received CES Innovation Awards for three consecutive years, demonstrating continued global recognition for its technology and product competitiveness.

WIRobotics believes that the movement data and control technologies accumulated through real-world deployment will become a key competitive advantage in the humanoid robotics era. Through wearable robotics technologies, the company aims to extend independent mobility, healthy lifespan, and active social participation.

Expanding Global Operations

Building on its commercialization success, WIRobotics is accelerating its global expansion efforts. In Korea, the company continues to expand commercialization channels through directly operated experience centers and department-store retail partnerships.

Internationally, WIRobotics is establishing a North American entity in California while expanding collaborations with global distributors and healthcare networks to strengthen overseas operations and strategic partnerships.

Scaling Toward Mobile ALLEX Commercialization

The humanoid business is also entering a more advanced commercialization phase. Beginning this year, WIRobotics plans to supply its research-oriented mobile humanoid platform “Mobile ALLEX” to global research institutions and overseas partners, enabling both collaborative R&D and real-world technology validation.

WIRobotics aims to evolve ALLEX beyond a research platform into a next-generation Human Motion Robotics platform capable of natural human interaction. Through partnerships with global research institutions and industrial partners, the company plans to accelerate real-world data acquisition and applied technology development while expanding into broader industrial and service sectors over the long term.

“This investment represents global recognition that the real-world movement data and control technologies accumulated through wearable robotics can evolve into next-generation humanoid robotics,” said Yeonbaek Lee, Co-CEO of WIRobotics. “We aim to accelerate the arrival of humanoid robots capable of interacting naturally with people.”

Yongjae Kim, Co-CEO of WIRobotics, added, “All investors from our previous Series A round participated again in this Series B financing, demonstrating strong confidence in WIRobotics’ technological capabilities and growth potential amid intensifying global humanoid competition. Our mission is to realize humanoids capable of fundamentally human-like interaction and force control, driving a paradigm shift in high-performance manipulation technologies.”

He continued, “This investment will further strengthen Korea’s humanoid robotics leadership while accelerating mass-production systems and global supply-chain development. Leveraging our proprietary hardware and control technologies, we plan to rapidly expand into Physical AI and intelligent service domains and lead the global humanoid robotics market.”

About WIRobotics

WIRobotics is a global robotics company developing wearable and humanoid robotic systems based on human movement data. Since its founding in 2021, the company has commercialized the wearable walking-assist robot “WIM,” accumulating extensive real-world user data and control technologies. More recently, WIRobotics has expanded into the Physical AI domain through its humanoid robotics platform “ALLEX.”

The company is advancing human-centered robotics technologies spanning from wearable robotics to humanoid systems, with the goal of building next-generation robotics platforms that enhance human mobility and physical capability.

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SOURCE WIRobotics

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NEC Vietnam Appoints New General Director to Advance Digital Innovation

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HANOI, Vietnam, May 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — NEC Vietnam announced the appointment of Yasushi Numakura as its new General Director, effective April 1, 2026. The appointment reflects NEC’s continued commitment to expanding trusted technology partnerships and supporting Vietnam’s growing digital ambitions.

Numakura-san joined NEC Group in 1990 and brings over three decades of experience across systems engineering, mobile technology development, and global business leadership. In 2014, he was appointed Head of NEC Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh branch, where he drove business portfolio transformation and strengthened regional partnerships. He subsequently held leadership roles at NEC Solution Innovators and most recently led resource management reform initiatives as part of delivery model transformation efforts.

In his new role, he will lead NEC Vietnam’s business operations and strategic direction, with a focus on strengthening software development capabilities and accelerating digital transformation initiatives across key sectors, serving both the Japanese and APAC markets.

“I am excited to join NEC Vietnam and build on the strong momentum established by the local team over the years. Together with our customers and partners, we look forward to creating what’s ahead through trusted technologies and meaningful solutions that create lasting value for businesses, communities, and society. In line with NEC’s 2030 mid-term direction, we will also advance our capabilities as an AI-native organization with security at the core, ensuring that our innovations are both impactful and resilient,” shares Numakura-san.

Under his leadership, NEC Vietnam will continue providing technologies and solutions spanning software development, biometrics, and public safety.

***

About NEC Vietnam

NEC established its liaison office in Vietnam in the early 1990s under the global business framework of NEC Corporation. It was re-organized as NEC Vietnam Co., Ltd. in 2006, with a newfound commitment to grow the business and contribute towards the people and society of Vietnam.

In a rapidly changing business environment, NEC Vietnam has evolved into a comprehensive solutions provider, leveraging their core competence in delivering Solutions for Society, focused on building social infrastructure that benefits citizens and communities.

Visit https://vn.nec.com to learn more.

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SOURCE NEC Vietnam

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South Asia’s First-ever Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) Demonstration, Led by ISGF in Collaboration with its Technology and Utility Partners

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NEW DELHI, May 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — South Asia’s first ever groundbreaking Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) Technology Demonstration in India implemented by India Smart Grid Forum (ISGF) marks a major advancement in smart Electric Vehicle (EV) charging and grid stability, paving the way for a future of bidirectional energy flows between EVs and the power grid. ISGF, with its utility partners and technical support from the University of Delaware (UDEL), USA, executed this first-of-its-kind Alternating Current (AC) V2G pilot demonstration in South Asia. The demonstration project was implemented at BSES Rajdhani Power Limited, BSES Yamuna Power Limited, TATA Power Delhi Distribution Limited, as well as at the Agency for New and Renewable Energy Research and Technology (ANERT), Kerala. This pilot demonstration has tested a variety of V2G use cases and found it highly relevant for distributed renewable energy integration and grid stability.

As part of the project, four Tata Nexon EVs were retrofitted with on-board bidirectional power modules and connected to the grid through bidirectional AC chargers. The equipment cost of AC V2G is significantly lower than DC V2G. ISGF is working with local technology companies and EV OEMs to build a V2G ecosystem in the country.

For more information, please write to contactus@indiasmartgrid.org

About India Smart Grid Forum (ISGF)

ISGF is a public private partnership initiative of the Govt. of India, with the mandate of accelerating smart grid deployments across the country. With 170+ members comprising of ministries, utilities, technology providers, academia and research, ISGF has evolved as a Think-Tank of global repute on Smart Energy and Smart Cities. The mandate of ISGF is to accelerate energy transition through clean energy, electric grid modernization and electric mobility; work with national and international agencies in standards development and help utilities, regulators and the Industry in technology selection, training and capacity building.

Website: https://indiasmartgrid.org/ 

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Tencent Cloud and Stream Partner to Accelerate the Development of Real-Time Multimodal AI Agents

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HONG KONG, May 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Tencent Cloud, the cloud business of leading global technology company, Tencent, today announced a strategic collaboration with Stream, the company behind the open-source AI agent framework Vision Agents, to accelerate the development of real-time, multimodal AI agents.

Through this collaboration, Tencent Real-Time Communication (Tencent RTC) becomes an officially supported edge transport plugin for Vision Agents, giving developers worldwide a low-latency path to build and deploy interactive AI applications across global markets, including regions where network complexity and real-time performance are critical.

Unlocking Lower-Latency Transport for Enhanced Experiences Across China and Asia

Vision Agents is an open-source, edge-agnostic Python framework from Stream that helps developers quickly build low-latency vision AI applications. Rather than retrofitting video onto a voice-centric stack, Vision Agents was designed as a video-first solution — running models such as YOLO, Roboflow, OpenAI Realtime, and Google Gemini on every frame, with sub-500ms end-to-end latency and over 25 out-of-the-box integrations across LLM, STT, TTS, vision, RAG, telephony, and avatar providers.

Through this partnership, Tencent RTC becomes an officially supported edge transport plugin for Vision Agents. Developers can use Tencent RTC to replace the default communication layer in Vision Agents and instantly leverage Tencent Cloud’s enterprise-grade backbone — more than 3,200 global nodes, sub-300ms worldwide latency, AI-driven noise suppression, and weak-network resilience — while keeping every existing LLM, STT, TTS, vision, and avatar plugin unchanged.

The integration supports both audio and video, making it suitable for voice agents, video agents, and multimodal scenarios — powering use cases such as gaming assistants, virtual avatars, sports coaching, and robotics. AI agents can join TRTC rooms and interact with participants in real-time through high-quality audio and video streams.

Tencent RTC operates a globally distributed real-time network with particularly strong performance across some markets in Asia where many global real-time stacks face connectivity and latency challenges. By integrating Tencent RTC, Vision Agents gives developers worldwide a reliable transport option for delivering low-latency, multimodal AI experiences to users in Asia. Developers can improve real-time communication performance by simply swapping the interface.

Wison Xie, Head of Product at Tencent RTC, said: “Vision Agents represents exactly where conversational AI is heading, beyond voice-only, into agents that can truly see, hear, and act in real time. By bringing Tencent RTC’s global real-time backbone to the Vision Agents framework, we are giving developers worldwide a turnkey path to ship multimodal agents that perform reliably from Silicon Valley to Shenzhen. This collaboration reinforces our commitment to powering the next generation of real-time AI experiences for enterprises and developers across global market.”

Neevash Ramdial, Director of Marketing and Vision Agents Lead, said, “Our goal with Vision Agents is to make real-time AI development faster, more flexible, and open, giving developers the freedom to choose the models, infrastructure, and plugins that work best for their applications. Developers building global conversational AI applications also need reliable real-time performance in every market, and Tencent RTC brings high-quality, low-latency connectivity across Asia to the Vision Agents ecosystem. We’re excited to work with Tencent RTC to help developers scale multimodal AI experiences worldwide while having the freedom to use whichever plugin or model best fits their app.”

About Tencent Cloud:
Tencent Cloud, one of the world’s leading cloud companies, is committed to creating innovative solutions to resolve real-world issues and enabling digital transformation for smart industries. Through our extensive global infrastructure, Tencent Cloud provides businesses across the globe with stable and secure industry-leading cloud products and services, leveraging technological advancements such as cloud computing, Big Data analytics, AI, IoT, and network security. It is our constant mission to meet the needs of industries across the board, including the fields of gaming, media and entertainment, finance, healthcare, property, retail, travel, and transportation.

About Tencent RTC: 
Tencent RTC provides real-time communication solutions, including audio/video calling, live streaming, and in-game voice. With enterprise-grade security, AI-powered enhancements, and a global network of over 3,200 nodes, Tencent RTC powers mission-critical communication for customers worldwide.

About Vision Agents: 
Vision Agents is Stream’s open-source framework that helps developers quickly build real-time video AI applications. It works out of the box with most major LLM, speech-to-text, text-to-speech, avatar, and infrastructure providers, so teams can go from idea to production in just a few lines of code, building everything from real-time sports coaches to rich, context-aware avatars.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/tencent-cloud-and-stream-partner-to-accelerate-the-development-of-real-time-multimodal-ai-agents-302774565.html

SOURCE Tencent Cloud

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