Hyundai Buys Robot Maker Boston Dynamics for $1.1 Billion, A Major Step in Consumer Robotics

Sieeka Khan, Tech Times 11 December 2020, 10:12 am

Hyundai announced that it will be purchasing robot maker Boston Dynamics from SoftBank. The deal is reportedly with $1.1 billion. IT has been in the works for a few months now and it marks a major step into consumer robotics for Hyundai.

Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics

According to Bloomberg, Hyundai is taking 80% stake in the company while its previous owner, SoftBank, will still get 20% through an affiliate.

Hyundai says that its investment will help its development of service and logistics robots, but in the future, the company hopes to make more humanoid robots for jobs such as caregiving for patients at hospitals. The other areas of interest for the company includes autonomous driving and smart factories.

Also Read: Hyundai Show Us A Glimpse Of The Its New Elantra Sedan

Boston Dynamics originated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The company has create robots through DARPA funding, like BigDog. Boston Dynamics is best known for being famous online, thanks to their robots.

The two main starts of the company have been Atlas, a humanoid bipedal robot that can run and do backflips, and Spot, a quadrupedal dog that has been tested in different scenarios, from assisting health care workers during the coronavirus pandemic to sheep herding.

Boston Dynamics started selling Spot in June 2020 for a total of $74,500. It targeted businesses that are looking for an automated way to patrol and inspect warehouses. Despite the fame of the company and its robots, Boston Dynamic has never been profitable, but this call could change under Hyundai's leadership and under a new CEO.

Boston Dynamics had quite the journey, from its beginning in 1992 to being valued at $1.1 billion. The company spent some time under Google, mainly focused on research and development.

Recently the company had a short stint with SoftBank, a deal that former Boston Dynamics CEO Marc Raibert announced and said that it is a lofty mission to push the boundaries of what advanced robots can do and to make useful applications in a smarter and connected world.

The industrial robots of Hyundai have been focused on factories in its automotive comfort zone, including creating a car with legs that the company imagined could be used by first responders to travel despite difficult circumstances.

Hyundai's plans

According to Popular Mechanics, Hyundai is set on purchasing Boston Dynamics because of the company's interest in Spot, the robot dog. Hyundai wanted to create a vehicle that has legs to make traveling more convenient, and Spot's legs is the perfect technology for that plan to come true.

In 2019 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, Hyundai debited its "Elevate" concept, which repaints a number of different car concepts that has legs.

CNET reported at that time that the car is capable of driving at highway speeds, stepping over five-foot wide chasms and climbing five-foot walls, making it like AT-AT from Star Wars.

In January 2019, Hyundai stated that its "Elevate" concept marks the first "Ultimate Mobility Vehicle" making it the world's first car with legs. Hyundai bills the strange cars as a possible solution in search-and-rescue operations and they believe it can help first responders.