This series, entitled Where the World and Kubota Intersect, introduces the future that countries from all over the world envision at Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai (Expo 2025), which opened in April 2025, and describes the related social issues and how Kubota is involved.
This fifth installment focuses on the Republic of Korea (hereafter referred to as Korea), which aims to use advanced technology to connect people and to expand these bonds into a future that protects “life,” and Canada, which is as a nation exploring the cycles of nature, culture, and society based on the core concept of “regeneration.” How do Kubota technologies intersect, with the futures of each of these countries? We will explore some of these aspects through the international stage of this Expo.
The Republic of Korea: Technology and Sincerity Reverberate, Resonating into the Future
“백지장도 맞들면 낫다”
(Many hands make light work): Korean proverb
With the theme of With Hearts, the Korean pavilion is a space where technology and sensibilities intersect. Prominently visible from the Grand Ring, the massive LED display measuring 27m wide and 10m high, installed over the front side of the pavilion, magnificently projects stunning scenery and traditional beauty from various regions of Korea, as well as a future society envisioned with cutting-edge technology.
The pavilion consists of three exhibition zones. In Zone 1, visitors can have a synesthetic experience in which they verbally answer questions about “important things,” and their voices recorded in booths are subsequently analyzed by AI and reconstructed into music.
Next, in Zone 2, a space that brings a barren city to mind, when visitors blow into installed pipes bubbles fall from the ceiling symbolizing hydrogen energy. This mechanism allows visitors to experience the “life restored by technology” theme through all five senses.
In Zone 3, A Melody Shared Across Time, a musical story set in 2040 Korea, is projected on three large screens. The story of a granddaughter completing an unfinished piece of music that her grandfather left behind is set to K-POP rhythms and movingly depicts the “connection between cutting-edge technology and human feelings.”
The entire exhibition space is wrapped in the value of “jinsim” (sincerity), which Korea has long cherished. Even cutting-edge technology is meaningless unless it moves people's hearts. As “a place where your heart and mine meet,” the Korea pavilion introduces advanced future technologies that respect the preciousness of life with human connections at its starting point, and portrays a sustainable future society in which all life lives together.
At the same time, Korea is attracting international attention as one of Asia’s technological capability leaders in advanced fields such as AI, hydrogen energy, and telecommunication infrastructure.
In this vein, Kubota is also expanding the potential of smart agriculture in Korea, linking people and agriculture.
In Korea, a variety of agricultural machinery has been introduced, such as Kubota's M7 series of agricultural tractors that supports automatic steering and its ER575 combine harvester that measures the flavor and yields of unhulled rice as harvesting takes place, with smart agricultural machinery progressively being used to meet diverse farming systems. Furthermore, with local agricultural machinery manufacturer ASIATEC Kubota jointly developed and manufactured the riding control machine KV2200, and the company's flexibility in responding and locally produced meticulous support systems meet regional field crop needs.
With its highly developed communication infrastructure and IT literacy, the Korean market holds great potential as an advanced demonstration field for smart agriculture.
Additionally, Kubota's efforts are not limited to the agricultural sector. In recent years, to realize the circular economy that has been attracting worldwide attention, Korea has progressively introduced technologies to recover useful precious and rare metals through urban mining. In this context, since 2008 Kubota has provided Korea with its vertical shredder, which enable high-precision shredding, and the same recycling process as in Japan has taken root there. This technology, which increases the separation and recovery rate of metals through fine, uniform shredding, has been highly acclaimed in Korea, and Kubota's technology is contributing to the creation of a new recycling society.
Kubota's challenges are steadily deepening its purposes for being in Korea: connecting people and technology, agriculture and resources, and the past and future.
Canada: A Landscape of Regeneration, Where the Ice Melts and the Future Sprouts
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”: Canadian proverb.
Outside the Canada pavilion, which has the theme of “Regeneration,” red chairs found in Canada’s national parks sit atop a giant shape that looks like drifting ice. The cool, refreshing appearance of the impressive structure, which resembles stage art and brings the natural beauty of northern Canada to mind, makes visitors feel cool just by looking at it.
Inside the pavilion, tablets are distributed to visitors which guide them into a world of AR (augmented reality) when held over the iceberg-like display objects. Multilayered representations of a diverse range of nature, culture, and technology include Canada Place in British Columbia, the CN Tower (super-high communications tower) in Toronto, aboriginal sculptures, children sliding in the snow, Niagara Falls, a starry sky, and the Northern Lights.
The pavilion’s cafeteria serves the traditional Canadian dish called poutine, as well as sweets made with maple syrup whose sweet, lingering flavor has made them popular enough to be dubbed “indulgent gourmet.”
These AR experiences and spaces that delight all five senses do not simply convey information, they also awaken sensory resonance with the idea of “regeneration” in the hearts of visitors. Canada's sincere pursuit of sustainability is seen not only in the state of society but also in the agriculture and industry sectors.
Founded in 1975, Kubota Canada Ltd. celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2025, and its 144 sales offices and 250 employees nationwide support the foundations of local agriculture and industry with tractors and construction machinery.
In 2021, AgJunction Inc., a Calgary, Canada-based company specializing in automatic operation control technology, was welcomed into the Kubota Group integrating advanced technologies such as auto-steering and work route generation into Kubota products, and accelerating the development of next-generation agricultural machinery for the North American market.
Furthermore, Kubota Canada Ltd. was named “Best Manufacturer” for the third consecutive year in a satisfaction survey of North American agricultural equipment dealers (sponsored by NAEDA, North American Equipment Dealers Association). This being the fifth time the company has received this award, the trust and service rooted in the local community have become an unwavering presence in Canada.
Just as nature repeatedly regenerates itself, society also fosters hope amid change. Kubota's technologies continue to warmly support Canada's future like the melting of ice in spring.
Cutting-edge technologies such as AI and AR are connected with human aspirations, and a new future sprouts from beneath the ice. Korea and Canada, with their respective exhibits based on the themes of “human connections” and “coexistence with nature,” powerfully depict the path to a future society. And what accompanies them on this journey is Kubota's technology.
The power to support agriculture, the wisdom to recycle resources, and the quality of its locally-rooted services all speak to Kubota's commitment to move forward together with the world as an “Essentials Innovator for Supporting Life.”
The future is not something that lies somewhere far away, but something that intersects before our eyes and is gradually nurtured. As the future emerges on the stage of this Expo, Kubota continues watching intently.
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