As Korea races to lead the global robotics industry, the Korean robotics market continues to grow at an annual average of 22% a year. Is Korea ready to rub shoulders with global players? Spire Research and Consulting shared its insights, published on the Korea IT Times news portal. The global industrial robot market is expected to grow to USD40 billion by 2020, at an average annual growth rate of 5.2% from 2014. However, Korea’s robot manufacturing market is expected to grow much faster, by 21.5% a year, to reach USD19.4 billion by 2020. Interestingly, Korea’s first humanoid robot – HUBO – developed by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) recently won the 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge, beating tough competitors from Hong Kong, Italy, Germany, Japan and the U.S. This prestigious competition is funded by the U.S. Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The competition aims to develop semi-autonomous (ground) robots that can work under risk-p