SoftBank agrees to buy Marc Raibert’s RAI Institute from Hyundai, report says

SoftBank Group has agreed to acquire the Robotics and AI Institute (RAI), the Cambridge, Massachusetts research lab founded by Boston Dynamics founder Marc Raibert, from Hyundai Motor Group, The Robot Report reported on September 18, 2026, citing multiple sources. The price was not disclosed, and the deal is under review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).

Neither side has announced the transaction. RAI told The Robot Report: “We don’t have anything to share on this topic right now.” SoftBank had not responded by press time. The Robot Report said the deal had been rumoured for a couple of months before the CFIUS filing; Korean outlets including Robot Newspaper (irobotnews) followed with the same account in the following days.

What is the Robotics and AI Institute?

RAI was set up in 2022 as part of Hyundai’s acquisition of Boston Dynamics, with more than $400 million in initial funding. Raibert, who founded Boston Dynamics in 1992, moved to lead it. The institute works on robot control, perception, manipulation, navigation and AI for physical tasks, and operates as a research organisation rather than a product company. According to The Robot Report, that initial funding has ended, which puts the lab’s ownership question on a clock.

Why would Hyundai sell RAI?

The sale fits a clean-up of Hyundai’s robotics holdings this year. On July 16, 2026, Hyundai Motor Group said its shareholders were acquiring SoftBank’s entire remaining stake in Boston Dynamics after SoftBank exercised a put option. The Robot Report put that stake at 9.65%; Quartz reported the price at about $325 million, making Boston Dynamics a wholly owned Hyundai unit. With the Atlas humanoid now pointed at Hyundai’s own plants, the group is concentrating spending on the business that ships robots. An open-ended research lab with its first budget spent is the obvious piece to let go.

Why does SoftBank want it?

SoftBank owned Boston Dynamics from 2017, when it bought the company from Google, until 2021, when Hyundai took a controlling stake. It has since rebuilt a robotics position around a larger bet: on October 8, 2025 it agreed to buy ABB’s robotics division for $5.375 billion, a deal originally expected to close in mid-to-late 2026. Masayoshi Son framed that purchase with the line “SoftBank’s next frontier is physical AI.” RAI would give the group a US research team with a long record in legged locomotion and manipulation to sit next to ABB’s industrial-arm business.

What does the CFIUS review mean?

CFIUS, chaired by the US Treasury, screens foreign acquisitions of US businesses for national-security risk. Although both buyer and seller are foreign, RAI is a US entity, so the transfer falls under its remit. Clearance is not guaranteed and no timeline has been disclosed.

Why it matters: if the deal clears, the lab Raibert built with Hyundai money ends up with the investor that owned his first company, and SoftBank adds a research arm to its ABB-led manufacturing push.