SoftBank to acquire Marc Raibert's Robotics and AI Institute from Hyundai
lukas_m_ziegler · x · 2026-09-22
SoftBank has agreed to acquire the Robotics and AI Institute (RAI) from Hyundai Motor Group, with few details disclosed. RAI was founded by Marc Raibert, who founded Boston Dynamics in 1992; SoftBank previously owned Boston Dynamics from 2017-2021 and is now buying Raibert's next institution. RAI does foundational research in robot control, perception, manipulation, navigation and AI for complex physical tasks—its team built the whole-body learning framework behind Atlas's acrobatics, and ETH Zürich's Marco Hutter has been closely tied to its research direction.
Related event: SoftBank Agrees to Acquire RAI Institute from Hyundai(2 posts)→
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