Hyundai takes control of Boston Dynamics in $1.1B deal

Hyundai is officially purchasing a dominant impale in robot maker Boston Kinetics from SoftBank in a slew that values the company at $1.1 jillio, the company announced today. The address has been in the works awhile, according to recent a story from Bloomberg, and marks a major ill-use into consumer robotics for Hyundai. Hyundai is taking approximately an 80 per centum jeopardize in the caller while its previous owner, Softbank, will retain around 20 percent done an associate.

Hyundai says its investiture will help its development of Service and logistics robots, but that over time it hopes to build more humanoid robots for jobs like "caregiving for patients at hospitals." Other areas of worry include autonomous driving and smart factories.

*Atlas, another one Boston Dynamic's robots.*

Boston Dynamics started as a byproduct from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The company has created robots using DARPA funding, equal BigDog, but is best known for the viral fame its robots have institute online. Its deuce main stars have been Atlas vertebra, a humanoid bipedal automaton that can run and Doctor of Osteopathy backflips, and Spot, a smaller four-footed "dog" that's been tried and true in a sort of scenarios, from sheep herding to assisting health care workers during the pandemic. The company started marketing Berth in June 2020 for $74,500, targeting businesses looking for an automated way to patrol and inspect warehouses. Scorn the viral celebrity, Bloomberg notes that Boston Dynamics has not been profitable in recent years, which could change low a new CEO and Hyundai's guidance.

Information technology's been a long journey from its start in 1992 to being valued at $1.1 billion. Beantown Kinetics spent fourth dimension under Google, primarily centralized on inquiry and development, and more recently had a stint with SoftBank, a manage that former Boston Dynamics Chief executive officer Marc Raibert announced with the proud "mission to push button the boundaries of what advanced robots fanny Doctor of Osteopathy and to create effectual applications in a smarter and more connected world."

Hyundai's own business robots have been focused on factories in its automotive comfort zone, including a "railway car with legs" concept that the company imagined could live used by first responders to travel across problematic terrain.

Chastisement Dec 12th, 9:41AM ET : This article originally stated that Boston Dynamics has never been profitable. This is incorrect. The company was profitable preceding to its acquisition by Google through gross sales of software package and research contracts.