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The Korean automaker already owns 80% of the robotics firm; full ownership would let it scale the Atlas humanoid to roughly 30,000 units a year starting in 2028, with NVIDIA and Google DeepMind as partners.
Hyundai already owned 80% of Boston Dynamics. Now it is buying the last 9.65% so it can do something it could not fully do before: scale Atlas, its humanoid robot, from a CES demo into a Georgia production line at up to 30,000 units a year starting in 2028. The remaining stake is small. Hyundai now holds the production lever outright. Atlas can be directed inside Hyundai's own manufacturing footprint, not just co-developed around a SoftBank minority interest.
The Korean automaker confirmed it will acquire SoftBank's remaining stake after SoftBank exercised a put option under a 2020 shareholder agreement, according to the Korea Herald. Deal value: about $325 million for the roughly 9.65% holding, per Bloomberg via Engadget, or roughly $335 million (about 500 billion Korean won), per Reuters via Silicon Republic. That transfer valuation pegs Boston Dynamics at roughly $3.3 billion, well below the $20 billion to $100 billion fair-value range Bloomberg published for 2026.
Hyundai paid $880 million in 2021 for the original ~80% stake it bought from SoftBank, per the Korea Herald. It has been adding to that position since. Today the Hyundai-side ownership looks like this: 28% Hyundai Motor, 22.6% Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Chung Euisun, 17.2% Kia, 11.3% Hyundai Mobis, and 11.25% Hyundai Glovis. After the close, Hyundai affiliates plus Chung will hold 100%, the Korea Herald reports.
The Atlas humanoid sits at the center of Hyundai's stated "end-to-end" Physical AI chain, meaning AI that drives robots in the real world, with NVIDIA and Google DeepMind as named integration partners. Full ownership lets Hyundai run the Atlas platform inside its own factories on its own schedule.
Hyundai has stated a target of up to 30,000 Atlas units per year, with serial production set to begin in 2028 at a Georgia plant the automaker is building. Initial deployment focuses on logistics and welding; expansion to complex manufacturing and component assembly is targeted for 2030, per Engadget citing Bloomberg.
The 30,000-unit figure is a stated ambition, and the 2028 Georgia start is a stated timeline. The dependencies behind both are real: NVIDIA compute, Google DeepMind models, a plant that does not yet run an Atlas line, and a robotics program that has shown Atlas dancing and running obstacle courses but has not yet produced humanoid units at industrial scale.
Tesla has named Optimus, Figure has its Figure 01, and China's Unitree has begun shipping smaller humanoids at lower price points. Hyundai is betting on a single corporate group that combines a research-grade humanoid platform, an NVIDIA compute lane, a Google DeepMind model lane, and a captive factory floor. The 9.65% gives Hyundai the right to run that integration without a SoftBank minority interest. The 2028 Georgia line will show whether the bet pays off.