Hyundai's New AI Research Center

Based around Boston Dynamics, $424 million center

Gif credit: Boston Dynamics

SATURDAY AUGUST 13TH, 2022 3:15 PM MONTREAL, CANADA

Hey Guys,

I’ve always said the push of automotive companies to be leaders in the next era of robotics is real. Now there’s suddenly more proof. On June 21st, 2021 Hyundai completed the deal for majority ownership in Boston Dynamics, a robotics company that has been passed around like candy.

Its YouTube has 3 million followers. (Video)

The South Korean automotive giant now owns a controlling interest in Boston Dynamics, previously belonging to SoftBank. Before that of course Boston Dynamics was owned by Google. Considering all the R&D Google does on robotics in Google Brain, the sale in retrospect is somewhat puzzling.

Companies like Tesla, Xpeng and Hyundai as I have reported, have serious interests in the future of robotics and of course, the robo-taxi industry which is going to have such an absurdly high TAM.

So why does all this matter?

Hyundai Motor said on Friday it will spend $424 million to build an artificial intelligence (AI) research centre in the US to bolster its edge in robotics technology, an area it cites as a key future growth driver.

In case you are a super-fan of my A.I. coverage I have a Summer discount for this publication which gets you access to additional content.

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So let’s get into it: