Solomon Corp. Awarded NT$100 Million A+ Grant from MOEA for Developing Humanoid Robot AI Perception Technology

(CNA, Reporter Tseng Yun-ting, Taipei, 18th) The Department of Industrial Technology (DoIT) of the Ministry of Economic Affairs announced today that its final review meeting for the "A+ Industrial Innovative R&D Program" has approved three R&D projects. Among them, Solomon Corporation's development of an AI perception integration platform for humanoid robots, which can autonomously identify distant targets and quickly learn new objects, will enhance the feasibility of robots in manufacturing, logistics, and inspection fields. The project will be subsidized by the MOEA with NT$100 million. DoIT issued a press release today stating that it held its 6th final review meeting on May 14 and approved three R&D projects from China Steel Corporation, Taiwan Hodaka Technology, and Solomon Corporation. These projects cover fields such as advanced automotive materials, low-carbon circular materials, and smart robot applications. They will leverage Taiwan's industrial advantages in steel materials, precision manufacturing, artificial intelligence, and automation to boost the overall development momentum of the industry. In advanced automotive materials, China Steel, in collaboration with Shang-Tai Industrial and Wuu-Jyi Industrial, is promoting the "Green Ultra-High-Strength Automotive Steel and Smart Forming Technology Development Plan." This project will develop domestic 1.5 GPa-grade ultra-high-strength steel and key manufacturing process technologies for cold-stamped vehicle body structural parts to meet the demands for vehicle lightweighting and enhanced safety. DoIT pointed out that the related technology can balance high strength and formability while reducing processing energy consumption and carbon emissions. It can be applied to new-generation vehicle models in the future, improving vehicle body safety and energy efficiency, and driving the upgrade of the domestic automotive components industry. In low-carbon circular materials, Taiwan Hodaka Technology is promoting the "Recycled Aluminum Smart Purification Technology and Low-Carbon High-Performance Aluminum Alloy Application Development Plan." This project introduces smart purification and process control technologies to increase the purity of recycled aluminum and apply it to high-performance aluminum alloy manufacturing, without the need for strict sorting of recycled materials. DoIT stated that through AI-driven dynamic adjustment of process parameters, stable production quality can be achieved despite variations in the composition of recycled materials, enabling the production of aluminum alloy products with up to 90% recycled content and reducing raw material carbon emissions to below 2 kg of CO2 per kg of aluminum. A domestic demonstration production line for smart purification of recycled aluminum will be established in the future to help the industry cope with carbon fees and international carbon reduction requirements. In the field of humanoid robots, Solomon Corporation is promoting the "Humanoid Robot Remote Cue Recognition and Fast Learning VLA Technology Development Plan." This project aims to build an AI perception platform with cross-platform deployment capabilities. Through active vision and generative AI technology, it will enable robots to autonomously identify distant targets and quickly learn new objects in complex environments, reducing dependence on large amounts of physical training data and enhancing the application feasibility of humanoid, quadrupedal, and wheeled robots in manufacturing, logistics, and inspection fields. DoIT added that according to the plans for the three projects, Solomon's project will be subsidized with NT$100 million by the MOEA, the joint project by China Steel will receive NT$42 million, and Hodaka's project will receive NT$54 million. (Editor: Pan I-ching) 1150518