RAI Institute Timeline

Events

• 2026-09-18 - Acquisition - SoftBank agrees to acquire RAI Institute - The Cambridge, Massachusetts institute was founded by Marc Raibert in 2022 and researches robot control, perception, manipulation, navigation and physical AI. Public reporting says the transaction is undergoing review by the Committee on Foreign Investment… - source: roboscout.in
• 2026-05-27 - Research Publication - RAI Institute demonstrates AthenaZero vision-based robot juggling - AthenaZero uses onboard visual feedback rather than an external motion-capture system. The multi-fingered system transitions between multiple juggling patterns. The work forms part of RAI Institute research in advanced learning for control. - source: rai-inst.com
• 2026-01-30 - Research Publication - ZEST paper transfers athletic skills to Boston Dynamics Atlas - ZEST trains motion-imitation policies entirely in simulation with moderate domain randomization. Physical electric Atlas trials include army crawling, breakdancing and video-derived scene interactions such as box climbing. Adaptive sampling emphasizes… - source: arxiv.org
• 2025-02-05 - Partnership - Boston Dynamics and RAI Institute Partner to Advance Humanoid Robots Through Reinforcement Learning - The teams aim to improve transfer of learned mobility policies from simulation to physical hardware. Planned manipulation work combines walking with interaction involving fixtures such as doors and levers. Full-body contact research includes dynamic running… - source: bostondynamics.com