Later this yr, Boston Dynamics plans to place its all-electric humanoid Atlas robotic to work in a Hyundai manufacturing facility. The brand new model of the bot, advanced from the hydraulic Atlas mannequin that’s been performing viral video demos since 2013, made its public debut final spring. However whereas the corporate’s dog-like Spot and warehouse robotic Stretch are already deployed at industrial websites, the Hyundai pilot would be the first time Atlas is utilized in business manufacturing.
Boston Dynamics, which was acquired by Hyundai for $1.1 billion in 2021, is coy about how the robotic will probably be used, however the normal concept is that it’s designed to be stronger and extra dependable than a human employee. “The robotic goes to have the ability to do issues which might be troublesome for people,” Boston Dynamics spokesperson Kerri Neelon says. “Like decide up very heavy objects and carry issues which might be awkward for people to hold.”
Atlas could have buddies: 2025 appears to be like set to be the yr that multipurpose humanoid robots, till now largely confined to analysis labs, go business. Some have already taken their first tentative robotic steps into paid work, with Agility Robotics’ Digit moving items in a warehouse and Determine’s eponymous biped shipping out to commercial customers final yr.
Tech giants are additionally getting in on the development: Each Apple and Meta are rumored to be engaged on some type of consumer-facing humanoid robotic. A 2024 Goldman Sachs report estimates that humanoid robots will characterize a $38 billion market by 2035—greater than six occasions what the agency projected a yr earlier.
The essential promise of humanoid robots is that they’ll be capable to change between a number of duties, similar to their human friends. It’s a basically totally different method from conventional meeting line automation, which builds a whole setting across the particular duties required for manufacturing. Jonathan Hurst, cofounder and chief robotic officer at Agility Robotics, expects its robots to sit down alongside that course of, not disrupt it.
“A purpose-built automation answer is all the time going to be greater efficiency and decrease price for that objective,” Hurst says. “That’s nice in case you have 24/7 operations for that particular factor you wish to do.” However for duties that don’t must run across the clock, a versatile robotic might be extra productive.
Boston Dynamics places it a distinct manner. With factories already designed to be a secure place for automation, the corporate says it constructed Atlas with a watch towards making a robotic that would go in every single place else. “We dwell in a human-first world,” Neelon says, “so we should always construct a robotic that displays that.”
However there are challenges to getting humanoid robots to market. Tesla’s Optimus has been closely anticipated for the reason that firm first introduced it in 2021, however a demo in October drew considerations when the robots on show had been revealed to be human-controlled, elevating questions concerning the extent to which Optimus may operate autonomously. In January, Musk mentioned the corporate was set to construct “a number of thousand” robots over the course of 2025—however in April he told investors manufacturing might be impacted by the restrictions on rare-earth steel exports China implemented in response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
