Boston Dynamics opens a permanent Atlas training center at Hyundai’s Georgia Metaplant

Boston Dynamics on September 21, 2026 opened the Robotics Metaplant Application Center (RMAC), a permanent facility at Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America (HMGMA) outside Savannah, Georgia, where its Atlas humanoid is trained on live automotive tasks. The company said the center will move into a new building roughly ten times its current size in 2027, and that Atlas’s work there will extend to component assembly by 2030.

Why it matters: this gives Hyundai’s robot maker a standing site to develop Atlas applications inside a production plant, rather than running short pilots. It is also where the 25,000-unit Hyundai and Kia deployment plan will be tested task by task.

What is Atlas doing at the Hyundai Metaplant?

According to the Boston Dynamics release, Atlas is currently being trained on “preparing the logistics and sequencing of automotive parts before placing them in the correct order for assembly” — kitting and sequencing work that sits upstream of the assembly line. The release states that “by 2030, applications will extend to component assembly,” with more repetitive and strenuous work, including heavy lifting, added over time.

The Robot Report said training at the center draws on teleoperation, reinforcement learning in simulation and Universal Manipulation Interface (UMI) handheld devices. Zack Jackowski, Boston Dynamics’ chief product and technology officer, told the publication: “The previous trials were time-boxed deployments focused on lessons needed to design our scaled-up presence. RMAC is the result of those lessons. It’s a permanent facility that’s focused on both data collection and application testing.”

How big will the Atlas training center get, and when?

Boston Dynamics said that next year operations will move into a new building at HMGMA that expands RMAC to approximately ten times its current size. The company did not give a floor area, headcount or number of Atlas units on site.

The scale target sits with the parent. Hyundai Motor Group plans to deploy Atlas across its global network, beginning with 25,000 units at Hyundai Motor and Kia plants over the next few years, and to build a US production facility capable of producing 30,000 robots a year. At its August 26 CEO Investor Day Hyundai set 2028 as the date for Atlas on HMGMA lines; RMAC is the step before that. Our earlier report on electric Atlas’s Hyundai commitments covers how 2026 output has been allocated.

Will Boston Dynamics train Atlas for other companies?

Yes, according to the company. Boston Dynamics said it is in discussions with several existing Spot and Stretch customers in manufacturing, aerospace, semiconductors, logistics, food and beverage, and life sciences about using the center to develop Atlas applications for their own operations. No outside customer was named.

The practical test is narrower than the announcement. Parts sequencing is a well-bounded job with fixed stations and known parts; component assembly on a moving line is not. The four years Boston Dynamics has given itself between the two is the clearest signal of how much work remains.