Hyundai Motor Group launches Boston Dynamics AI Institute

Hyundai Motor Group (Hyundai) has announced the launch of Boston Dynamics AI Institute (BDAI), with the goal of making fundamental advances in AI, robotics and intelligent machines. The Group and Boston Dynamics will make an initial investment of more than $400 million in the new institute, which will be led by Marc Raibert, founder of Boston Dynamics.

As a research-first organisation, the institute will work on solving important and difficult challenges facing the creation of advanced robots, to develop technology for robots and use it to advance their capabilities and usefulness. According to Hyundai, the institute’s culture is designed to combine the best features of university research labs with those of corporate development labs while working in four core technical areas: cognitive AI, athletic AI, organic hardware design as well as ethics and policy.

“Our mission is to create future generations of advanced robots and intelligent machines that are smarter, more agile, perceptive and safer than anything that exists today,” said Raibert, the Executive Director of Boston Dynamics AI Institute. “The unique structure of the institute — top talent focused on fundamental solutions with sustained funding and excellent technical support — will help us create robots that are easier to use, more productive, able to perform a wider variety of tasks and that are safer working with people.”

To achieve such advances, the institute will invest resources across the technical areas of cognitive AI, athletic AI and organic hardware design, with each discipline contributing to progress in advanced machine capabilities. In addition to developing technology with its own staff, the institute plans to partner with universities and corporate research labs.

The institute will be headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It plans to hire AI and robotics researchers, software and hardware engineers, and technicians at all levels.