Boston Dynamics names Rohit Prasad CEO for humanoid push

Boston Dynamics has appointed Rohit Prasad as CEO, putting the former Amazon artificial general intelligence leader at the head of its humanoid robotics ambitions, according to Fast Company. Prasad helped build and scale Alexa. His appointment comes as Hyundai Motor Group, which owns Boston Dynamics, pursues a factory capable of producing 30,000 robots per year by 2028.

That figure is a planned manufacturing capacity, not evidence of completed production or customer deployments. Fast Company describes the target as robots overall and does not specify how much capacity would be allocated to humanoids. The Boston Dynamics CEO appointment is a concrete leadership development, but the report provides no new humanoid specifications, autonomy results or deployment commitments. Prasad said he was joining at a pivotal moment for the industry and pointed to the company’s robotics expertise as the basis for advancing physical AI.

Prasad’s background is in machine learning and large scale AI products. Before Amazon, he led machine learning research at Raytheon’s BBN Technologies, working on applications including speech recognition and speech translation. Fast Company places his appointment in an increasingly competitive humanoid market, including Tesla’s Optimus program. Experience scaling Alexa is relevant to that mandate, though it is not itself evidence of readiness to manufacture or operate humanoids at scale.

Source: Fast Company