In 2020, the Hyundai Motor Group paid $800 million to acquire a controlling stake in Boston Dynamics after being impressed by the company’s cutting-edge humanoid, quadrupedal, and other robots. It is now investing half that amount in Artificial Intelligence (AI) development.
Hyundai is establishing a new Boston Dynamics AI Institute (BDAII) with its main office in Cambridge, Massachusetts’s Kendall Square research district. As a research-first organization, the new robotics institute will adopt an academic-meets-commercial-lab methodology devoted to “solving the most important and difficult challenges facing the creation of advanced robots.”
The Boston Dynamics AI Institute is designed to combine the best features of university research labs with those of corporate development labs, focusing on four core technical research areas: cognitive AI, organic hardware design, athletic AI, and ethics and policy. The institute aims to combine talent across several fields, including AI, robotics, computing, machine learning, and software and hardware engineering.
The institute’s name could change after it completes its corporate registration.
Marc Raibert, who founded Boston Dynamics as an MIT spinoff in 1992 and will serve as the BDAII’s executive director, explained, “Our mission is to create future generations of advanced robots and intelligent machines that are smarter, more agile, perceptive and safer than anything that exists today. The unique structure of the Institute – top talent focused on fundamental solutions with sustained funding and excellent technical support – will help us create robots that are easier to use, more productive, able to perform a wider variety of tasks, and that are safer working with people.”
Self-driving cars and autonomous robots have a great deal in common, despite their distinct appearances. Hyundai is also investing in a global software center dedicated to autonomous driving and mobility platforms. It will be built on the foundation of 42dot, Hyundai’s acquisition of a startup developing autonomous driving software and mobile platforms. Through software capabilities and technologies, it will enhance its capabilities in order to advance the development of Software Defined Vehicles (SDVs). There may be areas where the two new entities cross paths.
While this is happening, Boston Dynamics is busy exploring commercial uses for its adaptable 4-legged robot Spot and its more current robot Stretch, a captivating mobile platform designed for box handling and warehouse labor.
Hyundai has increased its commitment, and AI will undoubtedly play a significant role in general-purpose robotics, so there is a reasonable probability that this new Institute will keep Boston Dynamics at the forefront of the industry for many years or even decades.
The same general-purpose robotics vision is now playing out in the startup ecosystem: Andrew Barry, a former Boston Dynamics engineer, is co-founder and CTO of Generalist, a robotics foundation model startup that just closed a $200M extension at a $3B valuation.
