Hyundai and Boston Dynamics Unveil Humanoid Robot Atlas At CES

At CES 2026 today, Hyundai and Boston Dynamics publicly demonstrated its humanoid robot Atlas, showing off fluid movement and announcing plans to deploy a production version in Hyundai's EV factory by 2028. NBC News reports: "For the first time ever in public, please welcome Atlas to the stage," said Boston Dynamics' Zachary Jackowski as a life-sized robot with two arms and two legs picked itself up from the floor at a Las Vegas hotel ballroom. It then fluidly walked around the stage for several minutes, sometimes waving to the crowd and swiveling its head like an owl. An engineer remotely piloted the robot from nearby for the purpose of the demonstration, though in real life Atlas will move around on its own, said Jackowski, the company's general manager for humanoid robots.

[...] Hyundai also announced a new partnership with Google's DeepMind, which will supply its artificial intelligence technology to Boston Dynamics robots. It's a return to a familiar partnership for Google, which bought Boston Dynamics in 2013 before selling it to Japanese tech giant SoftBank several years later. Hyundai acquired it from SoftBank in 2021. [...] At the end of Monday's live Atlas demonstration, which appeared flawless, the humanoid prototype swung its arms in a theatrical gesture to introduce a static model of the new product version of Atlas, which looked slightly different and was blue in color. "I think the question comes back to what are the use cases and where is the applicability of the technology," said Alex Panas, a partner at consultancy McKinsey who helped lead a CES robotics panel that attracted hundreds of people earlier in the day. "In some cases, it may look more humanoid. In some cases, it may not."

Either way, Panas said, "the software, the chipsets, the communication, all the other pieces of the technology are coming together, and they will create new applications."

You can watch a video of the demonstration on YouTube.

Atlas?

[martin-boundary]

Remember when Boston Dynamics unveiled Atlas some 10 years ago (or thereabouts)? It was remote controlled then, too.

What I want to know is: have the Korean researchers figured out how opening doors [youtube.com] works?

Re:

[phantomfive]

Boston Dynamics robots looked really good a while ago, and I wonder what improvements they've actually been making over that time period.

Re: Atlas?

[timeOday]

The impressive part of this demo was the fluidity of movement and balance, and that part is not remote control. Just look at that disastrous humanoid robot demo from Russia a few weeks ago. However the life part of this demo showed nothing in the way of manipulating objects which is disappointing. The battery self-swapping shown in the video is really cool, I wish they had live demoed that.

Re:

[coofercat]

I sort of wonder if the world needs an open source robot design. That is, a 'reference design' which provides the motors and limbs, sensors and connections. You then have to make it into a working robot, by whatever means you want.

It sure would take the 'wow' factor out of making a robot walk on stage*, but would arguably amplify any 'real' achievements they can come up with.

* as noted elsewhere, the Russians couldn't even manage that bit, so I maybe we're a bit too early in all of this to say that part is

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Did you search for what already exists before suggesting the world needs to create it?

Re:

[wed128]

Remember when Boston Dynamics unveiled Atlas some 10 years ago

https://www.darpa.mil/news/201... [darpa.mil]

My thoughts exactly. Did we run out of robot names?

Re:

[martin-boundary]

Good find. This is what I had dimly remembered, from 2016 I believe: Atlas [youtube.com]

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

It depends what kind of remote control. If it's just giving it general commands like "go over here", okay, it's doing most of the work itself and in a production scenario that data can be supplied.

If it's like the Tesla one where it's just a puppet mimicking what a person is doing with motion capture, it's just a party trick.

Re:

[martin-boundary]

Comparing with videos from the same company that are 10 years old, the remote control performance has not improved significantly. The movements looked just as fluid then as now. Which either indicates that they made progress, while previously faking it, or they didn't make progress in the intervening 10 years, to first order.

Another data point is that today they claim industrial applications potential but show computer generated imagery of hypotheticals, instead of real life footage in a factory. But Atl

Stops at 104F ?

[greytree]

They say this robot stops working at 104F.

Wish I could.

Re:

[sabbede]

Well I sure do. At 104F, I'm lying in bed sweating, shivering, and hallucinating. Unless I'm at the toilet, purging my digestive tract from one or both ends.

Batteries will count for more for Hyundai

[shilly]

While I’m sure this cool tech will matter to Hyundai, I think they’ll be much more positively affected by the two big battery announcements of the last few weeks: CATL launching production sodium batteries next year, and Donut launching production solid state batteries at CES.

Re:

[phantomfive]

If the Donut Battery [donutlab.com] is real, that's some impressive tech. Looks like it's roughly the same energy/kg as gasoline, and not too expensive. Looks like the company is based in Finland.

Re:

[shilly]

It is Finnish, yes. There's lots of reasons to be skeptical, but fingers crossed it actually is real

Re:

[phantomfive]

Fortunately they say they'll have a product for sale in the next few months, so it's not even worth spending effort being skeptical. Just wait a few months and we'll know either way.

Re:

[shilly]

Yep.

Re:

[ChatHuant]

[The Donut battery] Looks like it's roughly the same energy/kg as gasoline

How do you reckon this? The Donut Lab's web site [donutlab.com] quotes 400 Wh/kg which is a bit better than Lithium-ion but far from the 12000 Wh/kg of gasoline.

hype

[tiananmen tank man]

we already have machines, what does making it a bipedal humanoid shape give?

Re: hype

[tiananmen tank man]

how is a "t-1000" better than "Johny five"?

Re:

[zlives]

one can smile while it kills you

Re: hype

[newcastlejon]

Can Johnny 5 climb stairs?

The idea behind humanoid robots is that they can go anywhere humans can go and use any tool that humans can use.

Re:hype

[drinkypoo]

what does making it a bipedal humanoid shape give?

The ability to navigate spaces meant for humans, like the interiors of nearly all structures on the planet.

Re:

[Locke2005]

The ability to climb stairs?

Re:

[zlives]

for the money it will cost them, they sure hope so

Video from the start

[pahles]

Why give a link of the video more then two minutes in? https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

Not a robot.

[zephvark]

What they have demonstrated is a remote-controlled toy. I'm sure it's charming.

Re: Not a robot.

[newcastlejon]

It's still more impressive than a guy in a robot suit.

Nice demo

[plank_man]

sooo they have a demo with a robot that just stands there while they roll videos and talk corpspeak? very impressive, let me know when the thing actually works

Re:

[Locke2005]

Come on, we all know what you REALLY can't wait to buy... sexbots!

Atlas?

[bemenaker]

Not even 2 Tons. I don't see any gauss rifles, ppc's, lrm 20's, autocannons. Sheesh.

Excellent!

[Locke2005]

I see the killbots are coming along nicely! "Release the (AI) hounds!"

Stupid

[0xG]

I don't want a walking AI interface. That's completely pointless; who cares if it walks?

I want a robot that can go to the fridge, select the proper kind of beer, get a new glass from the cupboard, rinse it, and pour the beer without a head.

There's no way these robots can perform such an important task.

Re:

[RitchCraft]

So you would like your bud to be wiser then?