Marco Hutter named as Head of the Boston AI Institute in Zurich

Marco Hutter will head up the Boston Dynamics AI Institute in Zurich, further details of which can be found in a press release. The organization, which was founded just over a year ago, has now announced that its first office aside from the headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will commence operations in January 2024 and simultaneously act as its European headquarters. Under Hutter’s leadership, the institute will aim to advance the development of smart machines that can operate in the world’s most difficult and unstructured environments. Hutter has been a visiting fellow at the institute since March 2023.

Hutter is Professor for Robotics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) and Director of the ETH Center for Robotics, while also having co-founded the ANYbotics, a spin-off from ETH Zurich established in 2016. According to the information, Hutter will continue to be active in his roles at ETH Zurich in addition to heading up the AI Institute. “I have been so impressed with the technical work Marco and his students have done over the years, that now I’m thrilled that we will be working much more closely together under this new arrangement”, comments Marc Raibert, founder and Executive Director of the AI Institute, in the press release.

In 2020, Hyundai Motor Company acquired Boston Dynamics, the robotics firm founded by Raibert back in 2013. Hyundai und Boston Dynamics invested more than 400 million US dollars to found the Boston Dynamics AI Institute in 2022. ce/mm