South Korea's Hyundai Motor Company bought the remaining 9.65% stake in Boston Dynamics from Japan's SoftBank Group for $325 million. This is reported in a press release from Hyundai Motor.
As part of the deal, SoftBank exercised an option to sell shares of Boston Dynamics, which it has owned since 2020, and Hyundai Motor became the owner of 100% of the assets of the Japanese robot manufacturer amid increased competition with Tesla Optimus and Figure AI.
SoftBank bought Boston Dynamics from Alphabet in 2017, and Hyundai acquired an 80% stake in the company in 2021 for $880 million at a total cost of Boston of $1.1 billion.
SoftBank decided to exit the Boston Dynamics stake in order to redirect capital to invest in OpenAI, in which it has already invested $41 billion. At the same time, SoftBank does not abandon robotics and plans to use robots in the structure of the new company. Roze AI for infrastructure construction, including data centers.
The deal aims to accelerate the development, mass production and deployment of robots, including the Boston Dynamics Atlas humanoid robot, at Hyundai's American plants in Jojia State for sorting and assembling parts in 2028-2030. The Hyundai Mobis division manufactures drives for Atlas, which makes it possible to keep one of the robot's most important hardware systems on its own industrial base.
Boston Dynamics is a company that manufactures moving robots for industrial companies. Boston Dynamics began sales of the first commercial Spot robot in 2020 and recently introduced the Stretch model, specifically designed to work in warehouses and sorting centers. The headquarters is located in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Hyundai Motor Company is a South Korean multinational automobile manufacturer with headquarters in Seoul (South Korea). The company owns 8 production bases and 7 design centers, and also operates the world's largest enterprise in Ulsan (South Korea). Hyundai Motor Company is a part of Hyundai Motor Group.
SoftBank Group is a Japanese multinational holding company in the field of marketing, telecommunications, finance and technology startups. The headquarters is located in Tokyo (Japan).
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