Boston Dynamics is unlikely to pursue an initial public offering next year as Hyundai Motor Group’s humanoid robotics business has yet to deploy its flagship Atlas robots at scale and remains deeply unprofitable, according to a senior Hyundai executive with direct knowledge of the matter cited by Reuters.
“It won’t be easy,” the executive said when asked whether Boston Dynamics could go public next year.
“We need to see conditions and situations,” the executive added, declining to be identified because the matter is confidential.
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The comments suggest a public listing could still be several years away, tempering expectations that Hyundai might use an IPO to capitalize on growing investor enthusiasm for humanoid robots and raise money for Boston Dynamics’ expansion.
Hyundai Motor Group has not publicly disclosed a timetable or valuation target for a potential Boston Dynamics listing.
Investor interest in a potential listing intensified after Boston Dynamics unveiled an updated version of Atlas at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. Hyundai subsequently demonstrated the production version of the humanoid robot, helping fuel a sharp rally in Hyundai Motor shares as investors began pricing in the potential commercial value of the group’s robotics ambitions.
That enthusiasm has since cooled as investors have received limited updates on the company’s robotics strategy.
Hyundai Motor shares are still up about 25% this year, but have lagged the broader South Korean market, which has gained about 60%. The automaker’s shares had more than doubled earlier in the year following the Atlas unveiling before giving up much of those gains.
Humanoid Robots Face A Scaling Problem
The main obstacle to a Boston Dynamics IPO is not investor interest but the stage of the company’s technology and business. Humanoid robots remain difficult to deploy broadly in industrial environments, where machines must perform repetitive tasks safely, reliably and economically while handling unpredictable physical conditions.
Hyundai has said it aims to establish a factory capable of producing 30,000 robots annually by 2028. It plans to begin deploying humanoid robots at its US manufacturing plant in Georgia that year before expanding their use across its wider manufacturing network.
Some analysts consider those targets ambitious.
“I think it might take far more time for humanoid robots to replace human workers at the assembly line,” said Kim Hyun-su, a senior fund manager at Seoul-based IBK Asset Management.
“It’s not difficult to make robots dancing, but it’s challenging to make them carry heavy loads and get involved in manufacturing at plants.”
The challenge is central to Boston Dynamics’ valuation. Demonstrating that a humanoid robot can walk, balance, or perform controlled demonstrations is fundamentally different from proving that it can operate continuously on a factory floor, handle heavy components and perform economically at industrial scale.
Elon Musk, whose Tesla is developing the Optimus humanoid robot, has similarly described humanoid robots as “the hardest product to scale manufacturing” that the electric vehicle company has developed.
That challenge makes operating data particularly important for Boston Dynamics. Kim Joon-sung, an analyst at Meritz Securities, said the company would be more likely to pursue an IPO in 2029 or 2030 after accumulating significant operational data and improving Atlas’ capabilities before selling the robots widely to external customers.
The timeline would give Hyundai several more years to demonstrate that Atlas can move from a high-profile robotics project into a commercially viable product.
Valuation Expectations Run Far Ahead Of Current Earnings
Boston Dynamics’ potential valuation already illustrates the gap between investor expectations and the company’s current financial performance.
Samsung Securities has cited market estimates ranging from 50 trillion won to 100 trillion won for the company. IBK Securities went considerably further in August, estimating that Boston Dynamics could be worth 141 trillion won by 2030 if it generates roughly 11 trillion won in annual revenue.
Those valuations are based largely on expectations for future humanoid-robot adoption rather than Boston Dynamics’ current earnings. The company recorded a loss of 528.4 billion won in 2025, according to a filing from Hyundai Glovis, which owns about 11% of Boston Dynamics. Its cumulative losses from 2021 through 2025 reached nearly 1.7 trillion won.
Hyundai’s ownership structure has also changed as the group prepares for a longer-term robotics strategy. Hyundai acquired a controlling stake in Boston Dynamics in 2021 and announced in July that it planned to make the robotics company wholly owned by acquiring SoftBank’s roughly 10% stake at an undisclosed valuation.
Media reports at the time estimated the transaction at about 500 billion won.
Other shareholders include Hyundai Motor, Kia, Hyundai Mobis, Hyundai Glovis and Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Euisun Chung.
The move to full ownership could give Hyundai greater control over Boston Dynamics’ investment strategy as the company develops Atlas and prepares for industrial deployment. But it also means the parent group is carrying more of the financial burden while the robotics business remains loss-making.
A successful IPO would require evidence that Atlas can be manufactured at scale, operate reliably in real factories, and generate meaningful revenue from customers beyond Hyundai’s own manufacturing network. Until those milestones are visible, a public listing could expose Boston Dynamics to valuation pressure before the business has established a clear earnings trajectory.
Hyundai’s decision to delay a potential IPO is thus regarded as less a rejection of the humanoid-robot opportunity than an acknowledgment of its current stage. The company has a high-profile robot, ambitious production targets and substantial investor interest, but it has yet to prove that humanoid robotics can become a profitable mass-manufacturing business.
For now, that proof appears likely to take several more years.