According to Bloomberg, Hyundai Motor is negotiating with SoftBank Group to acquire Boston Dynamics. Citing multiple anonymous sources, Bloomberg reported that the deal could be valued at up to 10 billion US dollars. The report also noted that "terms have not been finalized and the deal may fall through."

Boston Dynamics was founded in 1992 as a spin-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was acquired by Google in 2013 and sold to SoftBank in 2017. Since its inception, RBR50 has primarily operated as an R&D organization. However, following the acquisition by SoftBank, a new focus on commercialization became evident.

In 4 2019, Boston Dynamics acquired Kinema Systems, a startup based in Menlo Park, California, which uses visual sensors and deep learning to help robots manipulate boxes. Kinema's Pick system was renamed the Boston Dynamics Pick System. This was the company's first commercial product.

In 6 2020, it commercialized the Spot quadruped robot, initially selling it to US customers for 74,500 US dollars. Since then, sales have opened to other regions worldwide, and Spot has been used in many interesting applications, including radiation monitoring at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

Boston Dynamics is also developing other robots, including the Atlas humanoid robot and Handle, a wheeled mobile robot designed to move boxes in warehouses. Atlas is more long-term in nature, while Handle may capitalize on the booming e-commerce automation market in the coming years.

Meanwhile, Hyundai Motor has always focused on industrial robots for factories.

If the deal goes through, it will be another transaction in a series of non-core asset sales by Tokyo-based SoftBank Group. The Japanese conglomerate has been hit hard by a series of failed bets, including WeWork and Uber Technologies. In 9 2020, SoftBank sold Arm to NVIDIA for 400 billion US dollars.

SoftBank Group is also the holding company for SoftBank Robotics, which produces the Pepper humanoid robot (formerly from Aldebaran Robotics) and the Whiz commercial floor-cleaning robot.

Michael Perry, Vice President of Business Development at Boston Dynamics, recently joined The Robot Report Podcast to discuss the commercial launch of Spot and its most unique applications. You can listen to the conversation below, but exploring nuclear power plants may be the robot's best use case.