Boston Dynamics and Toyota team up for AI humanoid robots

Two world leaders in robotics and humanoid artificial intelligence (AI), Boston Dynamics and Toyota Research Institute (TRI), have announced a new partnership.

The companies will come together and integrate TRI’s Large Behavior Models (LBMs) with Boston Dynamic’s work on their humanoid robot Atlas.

Boston Dynamics has also attracted investment from Hyundai, who are acting as a testing group for Atlas robots.

“There has never been a more exciting time for the robotics industry, and we look forward to working with TRI to accelerate the development of general-purpose humanoids,” said Robert Playter, CEO of Boston Dynamics. “This partnership is an example of two companies with a strong research-and-development foundation coming together to work on many complex challenges and build useful robots that solve real-world problems.”

This new collaboration between TRI and Boston Dynamics will help the Boston-based company maintain its lead in the race to autonomous humanoid robots by bringing in experts in the AI modeling side of development, leaving them to focus on the robotics.

However, there is no room for complacency as developments are being made frequently.

Earlier this year, Nvidia began to make moves in the robotic humanoid sphere, capitalizing on its advanced AI technology. Robotics company Figure announced the 02 version of their humanoid robots in August of this year. The robot has enhanced dexterity over the 01 model, a 7.5-hour battery life, and has been interesting at a BMW factory performing assembly tasks.

Elon Musk’s Tesla has also been developing a humanoid robot to aid manufacturing. Optimus, Tesla’s robot, is planned for commercial availability in 2026 and is intended to perform dangerous and repetitive tasks.

Humanoid robot industry veterans 1X announced their newest robot NEO early in September. NEO is designed to operate within consumer home environments and is safety-oriented.

China’s humanoid robot industry has seen a boom this year, with over two dozen companies showcasing humanoid robots at the World Robot Conference in Beijing in August.

Featured image credit: Boston Dynamics

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