Google DeepMind Hires Former CTO of Boston Dynamics because the Company Pushes Deeper Into Robotics | EUROtoday

Google DeepMind has employed the previous Chief Technology Officer of Boston Dynamics as the corporate pushes deeper into robotics. Aaron Saunders, who’s partly answerable for giving the world backflipping and dancing machines, joined because the VP of {hardware} engineering earlier this month.

The rent is a key a part of CEO Demis Hassabis’ imaginative and prescient for Gemini to turn out to be a kind of robotic working system, much like how Google provides its Android software program to an array of smartphone producers.

“You can sort of think of it as a bit like an Android play […] We want to build an AI system, a Gemini base, that can work almost out-of-the-box, across any body configuration,” Hassabis mentioned in an interview with WIRED. “Obviously humanoids, but non-humanoids too.”

Boston Dynamics is legendary for growing legged robots, together with four-legged dog-sized methods and humanoid machines, able to spectacular acrobatic feats. Saunders labored on an amphibious six-legged prototype earlier than he was promoted to VP of engineering in 2018. He grew to become the CTO of Boston Dynamics in 2021.

Google DeepMind has produced vital robotics analysis for years. As curiosity in additional superior robotic varieties like humanoids grows, its researchers are doubling down on growing AI fashions to manage robotic {hardware} methods.

Hassabis mentioned he’s enthusiastic about these advances. AI-powered robotics “is going to have its breakthrough moment in the next couple of years, if I was to predict,” he defined.

Boston Dynamics is majority owned by the South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Company. Hyundai bought its stake from SoftBank, which acquired the corporate from Google’s father or mother firm Alphabet in 2017.

The elements and experience required to construct legged robots have turn out to be extra accessible in recent times. Quite a few US startups are actually engaged on humanoids, together with Agility Robotics, Figure AI, 1x, and naturally Tesla. Elon Musk just lately mentioned that his firm goals to provide one million of its Optimus humanoids over the following decade.

Chinese corporations are additionally making strides in robotics, and, in comparison with the US, supply remarkably low-cost legged machines. Unitree, which relies in Hangzhou, China, has just lately overtaken Boston Dynamics as the biggest provider of four-legged methods for industries like manufacturing and building.

Hassabis admits that he’s impressed with Unitree, however says his focus is on software program. “I’m most interested in the [AI] brain part of it,” he says, including that the multimodal capabilities of Google DeepMind’s flagship mannequin Gemini are notably properly suited to robotics.