Kaeling-Mireumi: Humanoid Tech to Tackle Care Staffing Shortage

Kim Tae-sung, CEO of Caring, and Wang Hongtao, CEO of Mirorumi, are joining hands to develop humanoid care robots that will open up new horizons in future senior care. Caring, a Korean senior care specialist, plans to proactively address the escalating shortage of care workers through an innovative collaboration with Mirorumi, a Chinese robot technology startup. The core of this collaboration goes beyond the joint development of humanoid care robots; it aims to meticulously verify that seniors can conveniently use robots in their daily lives and to discover new business models. Caring plans to focus on developing smart care services that integrate artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. The goal is to build senior care-tailored robot control technology that encompasses daily support functions such as conversation with seniors, medication reminders, and fall detection, all the way to emergency response. The developed robots will be piloted in Caring's 58 directly operated facilities nationwide, including day care centers and senior housing. During this process, vivid feedback from seniors and on-site care workers will be collected and analyzed to accumulate practical data for the advancement of AI technology. This is a crucial step to ensure that the robots can be optimized for real-life environments. Mirorumi, the collaborative partner, is a Shanghai-based humanoid robot specialist company established in 2024. The company boasts innovative robot technology, including the household robot 'Baobao' and 'Black Panther 2.0,' which set a quadrupedal robot speed record by covering 100 meters in under 10 seconds. Kim Tae-sung, CEO of Caring, emphasized, "According to a Bank of Korea report, the shortage of care service workers is expected to reach up to 1.55 million people by 2042. The widening care gap is a serious social issue, and we will proactively address this problem through active cooperation with leading domestic and international companies." Based on its extensive experience caring for a cumulative total of 16,000 seniors across 58 directly operated facilities nationwide, Caring successfully expanded into the senior housing business this year by opening 'Caring Stay,' a paid eldercare facility, and 'Caring Village,' a nursing home. This collaboration with Mirorumi is expected to be a major turning point in enhancing Caring's innovative senior care services and an important step towards leading the future care market.