Atlas: Boston Dynamics Robot From Prototype To Production For Hyundai, Google DeepMind

Boston Dynamics has officially begun manufacturing its new 1.89-meter humanoid robot, Atlas, with 56 degrees of freedom, for deployment at Hyundai’s Robotics Metaplant Application Center (RMAC) and Google DeepMind, marking a major transition from prototype to production-ready industrial robot.

The robot, unveiled at CES 2026 in Las Vegas, is designed for enterprise use, capable of autonomous operation, lifting up to 50 kg, and performing tasks such as material handling and parts sequencing with minimal supervision.

The Atlas robot features fully rotational joints, a reach of up to 2.3 meters, and human-scale hands with tactile sensors for fine manipulation. It operates in temperature ranges from -20°C to 40°C and has an IP67 rating, making it water-resistant and suitable for industrial environments.

Atlas can autonomously navigate to a charging station, swap its own battery, and resume work without human intervention, enabling continuous operation.

The robot is equipped with 360-degree vision and human detection systems for safe interaction in shared workspaces. It can learn new tasks in under a day, and once trained, the skill is instantly shared across the entire fleet of Atlas robots.

Atlas is being developed in partnership with Google DeepMind to integrate advanced AI foundation models, enhancing its cognitive and adaptive capabilities.

The robot will be the first test case, according to Carolina Parada, senior director of robotics at Google DeepMind.

“We’re looking to integrate our cutting-edge AI foundation models with Boston Dynamics’ new Atlas robots, and we’ll aim to develop the world’s most advanced robot foundation model to fulfill the promise of true general-purpose human needs,” Parada said onstage at CES 2026.

While some of the interaction and working with humans has been handled on the hardware side -- the 360-degree cameras to allow it to see when people are approaching -- DeepMind’s work could help the Atlas learn how to act.

“Rather than having a set of predefined, loaded tasks onto the robot, we think robots should understand the physical world the same way we do,”Parada said. “They should be able to learn from their experience. Should be able to generalize new situations and get better over time. So whether it is to assemble a new car part or to tie your shoelaces, robots should learn the same way we do from a handful of examples, and then get better very quickly with a little bit of practice.”

Hyundai Motor Group, which owns a majority stake in Boston Dynamics, will supply the actuators and is investing $26 billion in U.S. operations, including a new factory capable of producing 30,000 robots annually.

Initial deployments are scheduled for 2028 at Hyundai’s RMAC in Savannah, Georgia, starting with parts-sorting tasks, with plans to expand to component assembly by 2030.

The robot can be controlled via autonomous mode, teleoperation using a VR headset, or a tablet steering interface.

The product version of Atlas is in full production, according to the company, with all 2026 deployments already committed to Hyundai and Google DeepMind, and additional customers expected in early 2027.