South Korea's Hanwha Group formally launched Hanwha Machinery & Services Holdings — branded as Hanwha M&S — on Monday at an inaugural ceremony in Seoul, placing 57 technology and lifestyle affiliates under a single holding company with an explicit mandate to build out the country's physical AI infrastructure. The new entity, which holds ₩11.3 trillion (approximately $7.86 billion) in assets and generated ₩6 trillion (approximately $4.17 billion) in annual sales as of last year, is scheduled to debut on the Korea Stock Exchange on August 25 — three weeks from today — as the first independently traded vehicle for a specific slice of Hanwha's empire that spans AI-equipped surveillance cameras, semiconductor bonding equipment for next-generation memory chips, and South Korea's first commercially deployed collaborative robots. The launch marks the formal completion of a corporate split that shareholders approved on July 15 with a 99.95% vote in favor. Kim Dong-seon, the youngest son of Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn, has been placed in charge of Hanwha M&S's future strategy, while Kim Hyung-jo — a Hanwha veteran who joined the company in 1994 and most recently served as CEO of Hanwha Hotels & Resorts from 2021 — was appointed as the new entity's inaugural chief executive. The technology portfolio's three core businesses — Hanwha Vision, Hanwha Semitech, and Han