Hyundai moves to fully own Boston Dynamics

Hyundai is preparing to buy SoftBank’s remaining 9.9% stake in Boston Dynamics, a package Bloomberg values at about $325 million. If completed, the deal would give the Korean automaker full control of the robotics company it first bought into in 2020, when it acquired 80% and SoftBank kept a minority holding.

The point is less about ownership optics than speed. According to Bloomberg, Hyundai is working through contractual rights and obligations before taking the final stake, with the goal of moving Atlas from high-profile demos to a mass-produced machine for factory work.

In comments to Bloomberg, Hyundai described the plan as building out its AI robotics chain end to end, from development and validation to commercialization. In practice, that means tighter integration between Hyundai factories, partner software platforms, and Boston Dynamics robots designed to operate on shop floors rather than on stage.

At the center of that effort is Atlas, the humanoid robot Boston Dynamics showed at CES earlier this year in what it called a production-ready version. For years, Atlas was best known for viral clips of dancing, jumping, and acrobatics. More recently, it appeared in a more grounded setting at a World Cup match, walking through the players' tunnel and handing the ball to the referee.

Hyundai is developing the project with NVIDIA and Google DeepMind. The division of labor is straightforward: compute from one partner, control and perception models from another, and industrial deployment from Hyundai.

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Atlas factory rollout timeline

Hyundai expects to launch Atlas at its plant in Georgia, US, in 2028, and then scale to as many as 30,000 humanoid robots a year. The first jobs are expected to be:

• Logistics
• Welding

According to Boston Dynamics, Atlas will start with simpler, repeatable operations before moving into more complex manufacturing processes and component assembly by 2030.

Humanoid robot competition is heating up

That roadmap mirrors the wider market. Even the most ambitious companies still acknowledge that a truly general-purpose humanoid for any factory station is not ready yet. The path runs through narrow, repetitive tasks first.

Competition is building fast. Tesla is pushing Optimus and says it plans to use the robot in its own facilities. Figure AI is already testing humanoids at BMW sites, and Agility Robotics is building Digit production in the US. Goldman Sachs estimates the global humanoid robot market could reach $38 billion by 2035.

Against that backdrop, full ownership of Boston Dynamics looks less like a cleanup transaction and more like Hyundai trying to lock in a position in one of the most expensive bets in next-generation industrial automation.