Humanoid robots are moving from the “cool” demo phase to demonstrating real-world ROI. Boston Dynamics is poised to win this ultra-competitive race based on the company’s decades-long track record of research, demonstrated commercial products and unique partnership with Hyundai Motor Group, which provides the ultimate proving ground for the humanoid robot Atlas.
This is Atlas.
The same Atlas that backflipped at CES
and electrified fans at the FIFA World Cup.
But this Atlas is doing something far more impressive.
It's learning.
And once it truly understands how to complete tasks,
the scale changes.
The high-stakes sprint
to commercialize humanoid robots is underway,
with the market for humanoids projected
to reach $200 billion by 2035.
Boston Dynamics and Hyundai Motor Group
are betting that Atlas
is the strongest contender to win that race
and usher in a new generation of machines
designed to power human progress everywhere.
Hey, Mike. Amanda.
How are you? So good.
Nice to see you. Great to see you.
Thanks for coming in.
Of course. Can we go look at some robots?
I would love to. Let's go.
We've been productizing mobile autonomous robots
before anyone else.
We created the market for Stretch,
and now we lead it.
We've deployed Spot robots
at over 500 customers
across 46 countries.
We've learned what it takes to do this really well.
And we're targeting
less-than-two-year ROI
for all of our robots.
We do that with Spot.
We're aiming for that with Atlas.
I truly believe we have everything necessary
to be successful.
Artificial intelligence has changed
the game in robotics.
Instead of programming robots to do tasks,
Boston Dynamics can now teach them.
Physical AI unlocks a future
where machines can be used
to solve a much larger set of tasks.
The key question is how Atlas decides what to do.
And we find it very useful to divide
that process into two separate brains.
The physical intelligence,
so making sure that Atlas can step into places
without losing balance, or can reach to grab something.
And the second brain
is reasoning intelligence,
in charge of following complex instructions
and having common-sense understanding of the world.
When we talk
about physical AI,
it works similarly to a large language model.
The more data you have,
the better the robot's going to be at doing the task.
The problem is that data doesn't exist yet.
Atlas will have to leave the lab
to create it.
Can you explain, like, where we are and what happens here?
We are at the Robotics Metaplant Application Center.
It is a space for Atlas to learn how to do all kinds
of different automotive tasks and to validate
and ensure that the robot is as reliable as we need it to be
before we actually deploy it into the real world.
Working in automotive as our first industry
is a great way for us to prove that Atlas can be a trusted,
safe, and reliable member of the workforce.
Automotive manufacturing also has
rigorous security standards, safety standards,
and reliability standards that we want to be held to.
I spoke to you at CES when you were demonstrating Atlas
to the world for the first time,
and this feels like an evolutionary leap.
What happens next?
What's the trajectory?
The Atlas that you're seeing here
is designed specifically to do industrial work,
to be able to lift up really, really heavy weights,
and to work in really hot and harsh environments,
so manufacturing environments,
food and beverage, semiconductor manufacturing.
This is just the beginning.
You can have a great product,
but without the relationships,
it's almost impossible
to achieve your cost targets.
This is where the partnership
with Hyundai Motor Group truly makes an impact.
Hyundai Motor Group will build a new production facility
in the US capable of producing
up to 30,000 robots annually,
with plans to deploy 25,000 Atlas units.
With our relationship with Hyundai,
we've already reduced from prototype
to our first production run
between 60 and 80%.
That's what the partnership gives us access to.
And that is really huge because certainty about scale
is one of the most important things that you need
to build a thriving supply chain.
People come here because they want
to make a difference in the real world with robots.
15 years ago, that was a dream.
Nowadays, all the pieces are there.
When we think about deploying our robots
into the world,
the focus is around elevating human potential.
It is trying to get humans out of jobs that are bad
for their bodies or are dull and dangerous.
Anytime in history we've adopted large-scale automation,
it has been good for humanity.
Where we've seen the most effective implementations
of these robots has been alongside humans.
We are in a position to win the robotics race
because we are passionate about solving the hard problems.
It's not just about creating something in a lab.
It's about building everything around it that's necessary.