South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Group used this year’s Consumer Electronics Show to unveil its broad-ranging physical AI roadmap.
While much of the attention focused on the unveil of a new humanoid robot, Atlas, produced by Boston Dynamics — of which Hyundai is a majority shareholder. The automaker also went into greater detail on its new AI robotics strategy. It also detailed three key partnerships, which it said will be key to delivering on its ambitions.
First, the company explained how it intends to step up collaboration between humans and coworker robots in manufacturing environments, with the latter increasingly being used to perform hazardous, repetitive and dangerous tasks.
Second, it pledged to make more use of its relationship with Boston Dynamics to develop what it describes as an end-to-end robotics value chain. The aim is to deliver more advanced AI robotics capabilities and enable faster scaling of production.
Third, it reaffirmed its commitment to partnering with more global leaders in AI, as evidenced by Boston Dynamics’ newly announced tie-up with Google DeepMind.
Specific highlights of the masterplan — part of a $26 billion investment in the U.S. over the next four years — include the establishment of a Robot Metaplant Application Center at the its new Metaplant in Bryan County, Georgia. The company hailed this as being the engine of Hyundai’s AI Robotics aspirations, where robots will undergo a training regime including mapping human movements such as lifts and turns that will ultimately enable them to execute complex tasks on the factory floor.
“By 2028, RMAC-trained Atlas robots will be deployed for highly repetitive sequencing tasks, progressing to complex assembly work by 2030,” the company said in a press release. As many as 30,000 robots could be produced annually by 2028.
The strategy will also see an increase in the company’s software-designed factory approach, first seen at its manufacturing facility in Singapore. This integrates real-world production data to optimize robot learning and performance, enabling them to be continually updated and improved.
Meanwhile, away from the glamor of the CES stages and booths, Korean media reported that Hyundai executive chair Euisun Chung held a closed door meeting with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in Las Vegas.
The pair confirmed a strategic partnership at CES last year to accelerate the use of AI in Hyundai’s vehicles, and expanded their relationship in November that they would work together with the South Korean government to accelerate the country’s AI ecosystem development.
While neither party has confirmed what the latest meeting concerned, the chip giant’s reveal of its new self-driving tech Nvidia Drive AV, based on Alpamayo open source models, was likely to have been on the agenda, given Hyundai’s desire to expand its own autonomous driving efforts.
The company’s desire to increase the level of automation it offers was underpinned at CES by a display that included a motorized platform that parks cars for owners and a robotic arm that charges an Ioniq 5.
