Boston Dynamics has opened the Robotics Metaplant Application Center, a training facility for its Atlas humanoid robot, inside Hyundai Motor Group's Metaplant America campus outside Savannah, Georgia. The center is a testbed for putting Atlas directly into Hyundai's car plants, and the robots are already in training there.
The early tasks are logistics rather than assembly. Atlas is learning to prepare and sequence automotive parts, getting them into the right order before they reach the line, with component assembly not planned until 2030. Boston Dynamics says the robot will take on repetitive and physically strenuous work such as lifting heavy loads over time. The robots at the center are trained in the real plant environment, and at least some of that training is teleoperated, with a human operator driving Atlas.
The deployment numbers are what make this more than a pilot. Hyundai Motor Group plans to roll out 25,000 Atlas units across Hyundai and Kia plants worldwide over the next few years, and to build a new U.S. production facility capable of turning out 30,000 robots a year. "Together with Hyundai Motor Group, we are pioneering physical AI at enterprise scale," said Zack Jackowski, chief product and technology officer at Boston Dynamics.
The current center is a first phase. In 2027 the operation moves into a new building at the same campus that expands it to roughly ten times its current size, and Boston Dynamics plans to start exploring Atlas uses beyond automotive that year. The company says it is already in talks with existing Spot and Stretch customers in manufacturing, aerospace, semiconductors, logistics, food and beverage, and life sciences about data-collection and other tasks to feed Atlas's training. Atlas remains a development platform, not yet a commercial product, which is the gap the training center exists to close.
