Illustration of a Boston skyline at dusk beside a robotics factory with a quadruped robot and a humanoid robot, Boston robotics

Boston Robotics 2026: Boston Dynamics Waltham, iRobot and Symbotic

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Key takeaways

  • Boston Dynamics said it will build a $100 million, 323,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Waltham that could employ up to 1,250 workers by 2033, with $25 million in state tax credits, the Boston Globe reported.
  • iRobot, based in Bedford, was acquired in full by Picea on January 23, 2026 after a court-supervised process; the company says it kept its Bedford headquarters and US engineering.
  • MassRobotics says its resident startups have collectively raised $2 billion in venture funding.
  • Symbotic, of Wilmington, reported $721 million in fiscal third-quarter revenue, 90.5% of it from Walmart, per search excerpts of its results release.

Massachusetts has long been one of the world’s densest robotics clusters, with a mix of a famous legged-robot maker, a consumer-robot pioneer, warehouse-automation companies and a nonprofit incubator. Four recent announcements show where that cluster stands in October 2026. This report covers Massachusetts companies only and relies on company statements and Boston Globe reporting.

Boston Dynamics: Waltham as a factory

On June 24, Boston Dynamics said it would consolidate manufacturing of its Spot, Atlas and Stretch robots in a new facility at 1601 Trapelo Road in Waltham, according to the Globe. The $100 million project covers 323,000 square feet, includes a training center for advanced robotics and AI skills, and could employ up to 1,250 people by 2033. The state’s Economic Assistance Coordinating Council is providing $25 million in tax credits. Interim CEO Amanda McMaster said the expansion “is a reflection of how fast our industry is moving.” The Globe also reported that Hyundai became the company’s sole owner a week earlier by buying SoftBank’s shares for $325 million, and that Atlas will roll out gradually starting in Hyundai’s auto plants. The Globe noted that Chinese humanoid makers are racing to deploy, and quoted a Morgan Stanley projection of 50,000 Chinese humanoid sales this year.

iRobot under Picea

iRobot, the Bedford maker of the Roomba, completed a court-supervised transaction with Shenzhen Picea Robotics on January 23, 2026, according to the company’s release and a Robot Report article that we reviewed in search excerpts. Picea acquired 100% of the equity, making iRobot privately held, and the company said it retained its Bedford headquarters and kept engineering, product development, marketing and other corporate functions in the United States. We did not find independent reporting on how many Massachusetts jobs have been affected since the transaction.

Symbotic: Wilmington and Walmart

Symbotic’s fiscal third quarter ended June 27 produced $721 million in revenue, up 22%, with $55 million in net income, according to search excerpts of its results release. It had 77 systems in deployment, 56 of them operational, and Walmart provided 90.5% of revenue. Our broader supply-chain AI coverage and the national picture are in the warehouse robotics report in this series.

MassRobotics and the startup base

MassRobotics, which runs a Boston incubator, says its resident startups have collectively raised $2 billion in venture funding since 2017, and listed 2026 raises including Code Metal’s $125 million, Tutor Intelligence’s $34 million Series A, Algorized’s $13 million Series A and Sereact’s 25 million euro Series A (some of which are residents of its program rather than Massachusetts-headquartered). A MassRobotics forum page reports that Massachusetts remained a top-three US robotics hub in the first quarter, with 33 deals and more than $536 million in funding. We saw those figures in excerpts and did not verify the underlying deal data. For another local AI funding story see Modulate raising $25 million.

The product lines behind the plant

The Globe describes Boston Dynamics as a pioneer of legged robots that has sold thousands of Spot robots and expanded into warehouse robotics with Stretch, which unloads large boxes from trucks or places them on shelves. It said early versions of Atlas, famous for dancing and acrobatics in videos, could not do most everyday tasks, and that the company is now preparing to build humanoids capable of working in warehouses, factories and perhaps homes. The plan to produce all three product lines in one building signals that the company is planning for volume manufacturing, though it has not published unit targets. Oregon-based Agility Robotics, which the Globe said opened a humanoid factory in 2024, is the most-cited US rival.

Why it matters

Our analysis: the Waltham announcement is the clearest sign that Massachusetts is trying to keep production, not only design, of next-generation robots in the state, which is where competition with Asian and other US-based manufacturers is most intense. The pieces that remain uncertain are hiring, since the 1,250-job figure is a 2033 ceiling, and the commercial pace of Atlas, which the Globe described as gradual. Ownership matters too: two of the four companies in this report are now controlled from abroad (Hyundai and Picea), which is a different structure than the venture-backed startups MassRobotics supports. The state’s tax credits for Boston Dynamics also show how Massachusetts is using incentives to compete with other states for robot production, and the true test will be whether the Waltham training center feeds a local pipeline of technicians.

Sources

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