Google DeepMind is building a robotics hardware lab in the Cambridge, Massachusetts area, led by ex-Boston Dynamics CTO Aaron Saunders
Partly confirmed
The takeaway
On Oct 12, 2026 Aaron Saunders, Google DeepMind’s VP of hardware engineering and former Boston Dynamics CTO, wrote on LinkedIn: “We’re building a new Google DeepMind robotics lab in the Cambridge area!”
Status
- Claim
Partly confirmed
- Our reporting
- Medium confidence
- Importance
- 2 of 5
- Last verified
- 14 October 2026
Your AI and this story
- GPT-6 Astra165 days after its cutoff
- Claude Opus 5.5104 days after its cutoff
- Gemini 4 Argon195 days after its cutoff
- Grok 4.7134 days after its cutoff
None of these four assistants can know about it. The closest, Claude Opus 5.5, stops 104 days before it.
Key facts
- Announcement: Saunders’ LinkedIn post (Oct 12, 2026), reported by Humanoids Daily; no Google DeepMind press release
- Purpose: house the hardware team that has grown since Saunders joined about a year earlier; recruiting machinists, engineers and researchers interested in bringing AGI into the physical world
- Saunders: more than two decades at Boston Dynamics (BigDog, Spot, Atlas), its former CTO; joined Google DeepMind as VP of hardware engineering
- Not disclosed: size, budget, exact location, opening date, or any robot; ‘more news later next year’
- Context: Boston Dynamics is headquartered in nearby Waltham; Google DeepMind launched Gemini Robotics 2 on July 30, 2026; OpenAI’s Sam Altman has said OpenAI will ‘definitely do a humanoid’
What happened
Google DeepMind’s robotics work had so far been mostly models (Gemini Robotics) running on partners’ hardware. In 2025 it hired Aaron Saunders, Boston Dynamics’ long-time hardware chief, to build robots of its own. On Oct 12, 2026 he announced a dedicated lab near MIT in the Cambridge area for that team and opened hiring. The LinkedIn post itself was not read by us; the quote comes from Humanoids Daily, and an earlier DeepMind job ad had placed a robotics-hardware role in Cambridge, MA.
Why it matters
It is a sign that Google DeepMind intends to build robot hardware in-house, in the Boston robotics cluster, as OpenAI and others move toward humanoids.
Sources
2 sources from 2 sites. Numbers match the chips in the text.
2 sources: 1 primary, 1 press
Primary
- Aaron Saunders on LinkedIn (announcement)linkedin.com, official
Press
- Humanoids Daily: Google DeepMind building new robotics lab in Cambridge area (Oct 12, 2026)humanoidsdaily.com, press
Changes
- Filed from Humanoids Daily article read; LinkedIn not opened