Hyundai pits Atlas against Tesla Optimus in robot race

The carmaker plans a major robot factory, AI data centre and hydrogen plant in South Korea

- Bloomberg [e-mail]

Atlas is set for assembly-line deployment by 2028, complex tasks by 2030.

(REUTERS)

As Hyundai Motor Co. Executive Chair Euisun Chung took the stage at CES 2022 accompanied by “Spot” — a robot dog—a voice from the audience asked how long it would be before it dropped “Motor” from its name.

That time could be now.

Hyundai stole the show with its Atlas humanoid robot at last month’s CES in Las Vegas. In a display of fluid, person-like agility, the machine picked itself up, navigated the stage with ease, and swiveled its torso and head with a precision that looked remarkably natural. Such was the excitement, Hyundai Motor share surged 80% in two weeks.

While the world’s attention has been fixated on Elon Musk’s long-promised Optimus robot and the high-stakes AI race between the US and China, Hyundai Motor has emerged as a leader in humanoid robots.

For automakers like Tesla and Hyundai, humanoid robots use almost the same building blocks as EVs—powered by batteries, driven by electric motors, guided by sensors and AI. That allows them to use their tech expertise and manufacturing capacity to get ahead-start in a market Morgan Stanley estimates could be worth $5 trillion by 2050, when there could be more than 1 billion humanoids in use.