波士顿动力任命前亚马逊公司高管罗希特·普拉萨德为首席执行官，以领导现代汽车集团控制下的公司进入其机器人创新和商业化的下一个时代。
Boston Dynamics appointed former Amazon.com Inc. executive Rohit Prasad as chief executive officer to lead the Hyundai Motor Co.-controlled company into its next era of innovation and commercialization of its robots.
以敏捷人形机器人而闻名的波士顿动力目前正在开发面向工业和其他真实环境的机器人系统，这一领域被称为物理人工智能。早在今年年初，现代汽车就表示计划从2028年开始在乔治亚州工厂部署该单元的Atlas机器人，并建立年产多达3万台人形机器人的产能。
Boston Dynamics, known for its agile humanoid robots, is currently developing robotic systems for industrial and other real-world environments, an area called physical AI. Hyundai, which acquired majority ownership of Boston Dynamics in 2021, said earlier this year it plans to deploy the unit’s Atlas robot at its plant in Georgia starting in 2028 and build the capacity to produce as many as 30,000 humanoids annually.
普拉萨德在亚马逊工作了12年，帮助构建和扩展智能助手Alexa。加入亚马逊之前，他在雷神BBN技术公司工作了14年，负责监督美国政府和商业用途的机器学习研究和实际应用，波士顿动力周二在一份声明中表示。
Prasad spent 12 years at Amazon helping build and expand smart assistant Alexa. Before joining Amazon, he worked 14 years at Raytheon BBN Technologies overseeing machine-learning research and real-world applications for US government and commercial use, Boston Dynamics said Tuesday in a statement.
今年年初，罗伯特·普利特在担任波士顿动力CEO六年后辞职，这是该公司30多年历史上的第二任领导人。自那以后，多名高管离职，包括首席技术官亚伦·桑德斯。
Earlier this year, Robert Playter stepped down after six years as Boston Dynamics CEO, only the second leader in that post in the company’s more than 30-year history. Since then, several top executives have left the company, including Chief Technology Officer Aaron Saunders.
与此同时，现代汽车正寻求收购软银集团在波士顿动力的剩余股份，以确保完全拥有这家机器人先驱。现代汽车还与英伟达公司和谷歌DeepMind达成战略伙伴关系，共同开发Atlas机器人。这些机器人预计将首先执行诸如焊接和物流等简单任务，然后在2030年前被用于更复杂的制造过程，包括组件装配。
At the same time, Hyundai is moving to acquire SoftBank Group Corp.’s remaining stake in Boston Dynamics to secure full ownership of the robotics pioneer. Hyundai has also sealed strategic partnerships with Nvidia Corp. and Google DeepMind to develop Atlas. The robots are expected to begin simple tasks like welding and logistics, before being mobilized for more complex manufacturing processes, including component assembly, by 2030.