Boston Dynamics Opens Atlas Robot Training Center at Hyundai

Boston Dynamics has opened a new Robotics Metaplant Application Center (RMAC) at the Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America in Georgia. The facility is a permanent testbed designed to train the company's Atlas humanoid robots for integration into Hyundai's automotive manufacturing operations.

Zack Jackowski, chief product and technology officer at Boston Dynamics, stated the center represents a move to "pioneering physical AI at enterprise scale" with Hyundai. He told The Robot Report that previous trials were small-scale and time-boxed, focused on learning operational realities. "RMAC is the result of those lessons," Jackowski explained. It's a permanent facility that's focused on both data collection and application testing that operates in strong coordination with the auto plant.

He described the center as a 'Robot Behavior Factory,' which takes real parts, fixtures, workcells; adds Atlas robots and skilled pilots; and produces diverse, high-quality data for behavior training.

Training on Real Automotive Tasks

At the RMAC, Atlas robots are being trained using data from teleoperation, reinforcement learning in simulation, and Universal Manipulation Interface devices. The focus is on real-world automotive logistics tasks, such as sequencing parts before assembly.

Jackowski said this requires a high level of dexterous manipulation. Car parts need to be handled directly, interacting with complex surfaces. They must respect complex grasping requirements, as many have cosmetic or fragile elements. The parts often require bimanual manipulation because they are large, awkwardly weighted, or fragile. The tasks also involve extracting parts from complex shipping packaging and inserting them into high-density cubbies for transport to the assembly line.

The biggest thing we've been finding is actually that the design assumptions we made for the production version of Atlas have been very close to right on, Jackowski added. The company is learning more about modifying fixtures and packaging for humanoids, collecting data in production environments, and building support processes. Boston Dynamics plans to expand Atlas's capabilities to component assembly by 2030, with future tasks involving repetitive motions and lifting heavy loads.

Expansion and Industry Scale-Up

The opening of the RMAC follows a robotics and AI strategy announced by Hyundai at CES 2026. Hyundai stated it will deploy Atlas across its global network, beginning with 25,000 units at Hyundai Motor and Kia plants over the next few years. Boston Dynamics has moved some staff from Massachusetts to Savannah, Georgia, and is hiring more.

The first phase of the center is now operational, but expansion plans are already underway. Next year, operations will move into a new building that will expand the RMAC by about ten times. Boston Dynamics said the facility will support further preparation for automotive deployments and plans to explore use cases in other industries in the coming year.

The company is in discussions with several customers of its existing Spot and Stretch robots in sectors including manufacturing, aerospace, semiconductors, logistics, food and beverage, and life sciences. Jackowski noted that Spot deployments provide valuable institutional learning for customers on managing robot fleets.

Boston Dynamics expects to scale data collection and training for Atlas through 2027. Jackowski stated that SoftBank's recent acquisition of the Robotics and AI Institute from Hyundai will have no effect on Atlas development, calling Boston Dynamics's AI team one of the largest and strongest in the world.

The Move to Mass Production

Hyundai has said it will build a U.S. Factory capable of manufacturing up to 30,000 robots annually by 2028. This move is part of a broader industry race toward mass production of humanoids, with several competitors announcing their own factory plans.

Boston Dynamics is currently scaling data collection and other tasks to continue training its Atlas humanoids through 2027.