Hyundai's robots show their stuff in real-life settings, from the World Cup pitch to a peach farm
2026.07.07 07:00
At halftime of a FIFA World Cup 2026 match, a humanoid robot walked out of the players' tunnel, ran through a series of famous goal celebrations and handed the match ball to the referee.
The robot was Atlas, built by Boston Dynamics, the robotics affiliate of Hyundai Motor Group. Its cameo before the crowd and a global television audience was a marketing coup, but it also signaled something larger: the robotics technology Hyundai has long pitched for the factory floor is stepping into everyday life, from a World Cup stadium to even a Korean peach orchard.
Atlas appeared just before the second half of the Brazil-Norway match at New York New Jersey Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on Sunday, the ground usually known as MetLife Stadium. It ran through the signature goal celebrations of several stars, including the camera-click pose of Korea's Son Heung-min, then gripped the official World Cup ball in one hand and passed it to the referee.
Getting the robot on and off the pitch drew on the same technology Hyundai says underpins its industrial machines: retargeting, which remaps human motion onto a robot's very different body; reinforcement learning honed through thousands of simulations; and whole-body control, which makes every joint respond as a single system.
For Hyundai, the payoff was twofold: The World Cup gave Boston Dynamics a high-profile stage to build brand recognition, and having successfully pulled off the routine amid the unpredictable conditions of a live match showed the technology working outside the lab.
The other place Hyundai's robots are turning up is far from any stadium. In a peach orchard in Eumseong, North Chungcheong, where the early-summer harvest is in full swing, a young farmer named Choi Ye-rang tends 270 trees across two orchards with the help of a robotic exoskeleton.
The device, called the X-ble Shoulder and made by Hyundai Motor Group's Robotics LAB, supports the shoulders during the overhead work that fills a peach grower's day, from thinning blossoms and fruit to bagging and picking. It has spread from vehicle and aircraft maintenance into farming and other fields.
Choi credited the device with easing the strain on the shoulders.
“I don't even have to take it on and off going up and down the ladder, and the physical load has clearly dropped,” Choi said.
Passive and motorless, the X-ble Shoulder weighs just 1.9 kilograms (4.2 pounds). A study by the Rural Development Administration and Hyundai Motor Group showed that wearing X-ble Shoulder reduces shoulder muscle use by an average of 33 percent when harvesting five crops including peaches, grapes and apples.
Hyundai Motor Group is assembling a robotics portfolio that spans humanoid, wearable and logistics robots, part of a push to become a next-generation robot maker rather than just a carmaker. It sees humanoids as a long game and is amassing the difficult AI and control technology needed to claim a future market. Wearables, by contrast, are meant to widen its presence on industrial sites and bring in revenue sooner.
Kang Seong-jin, an analyst at KB Securities, expects the bet to pay off.
“Boston Dynamics will take 15 percent of the global humanoid robot market by 2035,” Kang said. “The demonstration unveiled at the World Cup shows the technological progress toward commercializing humanoid robots.”
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