Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang heaped praise on Hyundai’s robotics and said the two companies will broaden their partnership — a significant endorsement from the AI kingmaker in a rapidly emerging space.

Why it matters: Hyundai’s Boston Dynamics division is racing with the world’s leading robotics companies — including Tesla — to deliver groundbreaking humanoids.

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Zoom in: Huang said during a trip to South Korea Monday that Nvidia and Hyundai will expand their alliance to pursue advancements in mobility, manufacturing and robotics, several outlets reported.

• “Hyundai is incredible at manufacturing, incredible at mobility, incredible at heavy industries, manufacturing at extremely large scales,” Huang told reporters, according to Bloomberg. “No one is in a better position to take advantage of that and to create that than Hyundai.”

• He reportedly said Nvidia and Hyundai are “very very close” to industrializing robotics.

Friction point: The remarks could sting for Huang ally Elon Musk, who has crowed that Tesla’s Optimus humanoid is significantly more advanced than the competition.

• It “will be the biggest product ever of any kind,” Musk said in 2024 — a sentiment he’s repeatedly expressed since then.

State of play: Hyundai plans to mass-produce humanoid robots in Georgia. The robots will be placed in factories to work alongside humans building cars, Axios Future of Mobility author Joann Muller reported in January.

• The road map includes a plan to manufacture 30,000 Atlas humanoid robots a year by 2028 at its sprawling high-tech “Metaplant” near Savannah and then integrate them into its factories and warehouses worldwide.

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