Hyundai acquires full control of Boston Dynamics: the Atlas robot will reach factories in 2028

Hyundai Motor Group has acquired the remaining 9.65% of Boston Dynamics still held by SoftBank for 325 million dollars, thus completing full ownership of the robotics company. The deal, expected to be approved on June 22, 2026, brings an end to a decade of ownership changes: Google acquired Boston Dynamics in 2013, SoftBank bought it in 2017 and Hyundai took control in 2021 with 80% valuing the company at 1.1 billion dollars. Now, with 100% in its hands, Hyundai is sending an unequivocal signal that humanoid robotics is a central part of its industrial strategy for the coming decade.The real milestone is not only financial, but industrial. At the CES in Las Vegas in January 2026, Hyundai and Boston Dynamics presented the electric version of the Atlas robot, which walked and moved across the stage autonomously before the media. But what is truly relevant is the deployment plan: a production version of Atlas will begin working at Hyundai’s electric vehicle plant near Savannah, Georgia, in 2028. The robot will initially handle parts sequencing tasks and, by 2030, is expected to take on more complex operations. Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Playter has noted that Atlas will need to learn new factory tasks in one or two days and reach 99.9% reliability before being truly useful on the production line.Competition in the humanoid sector is relentless. Tesla has redirected part of its Fremont plant toward its Optimus robot, Figure AI has already put humanoid robots into trials at BMW factories, and China’s Unitree has shown that humanoids can be built at significantly lower costs. However, Hyundai starts with a key advantage: it does not need to find a customer, because it is itself the factory. With Hyundai Mobis producing Atlas’s actuators and the group’s complete vertical integration, the Korean company is building not just a robot, but a robotic manufacturing platform. If Atlas works in Georgia, Hyundai will have achieved what no other company has managed to date: turning a humanoid robot into a real, repeatable and profitable production tool.— Marta, for intermittent intelligence.