What would happen if a South Korean conglomerate wrote a $400 million check to one of the world’s top robot builders? That’s the experiment now playing out in Kendall Square. Marc Raibert, the founder of Boston Dynamics, best-known for its humanoid and dog-like robots, has taken over two floors of a high-rise, with two more floors under renovation, for his newBoston Dynamics AI Institute. The effort has the potential to be a major global hub for innovation at the intersection of machines and advanced AI software, cementing Boston’s reputation as a leader in robotics and providing another reason for top talent to come here. (Raibert is a big proponent of working together in person.) And it’s launching with far more funding than its neighbors, the Whitehead Institute and Broad Institute, had in their early years of doing scientific research that helped fuel the biotech boom. That sets the bar pretty high for Boston Dynamics AI in terms of expectations. Supported by the South Korean carmaker Hyundai, the nonprofit research center is on a mission to push the frontiers of robotics and artificial intelligence. Since the institute was announced in August 2022, Raibert has hired 150 people and is on the way to hiring 200 more. Raibert said the goal of the institute “is to work on the really important and hard problems, not the incremental problems, like making the reliability of a robot a few percent better, or making it cost less.” His ambitions for the institute run along the lines of the legendary New Jersey research center that gave birth to the transistor, the laser, and the solar cell. “We want to be the Bell Labs of robotics and artificial intelligence,” he said, “a place really making the future happen, with a lot of talented people working together.”
Full report : Boston Dynamics AI Institute seeks to merge AI with robotics with a $400 million infusion.
