Toyota’s research unit and Hyundai Motor’s Boston Dynamics are joining forces to speed up development of humanoid robots with artificial intelligence.

The partnership will pair Toyota Research Institute’s expertise in large behavior model learning for machines with Boston Dynamics’ humanoid Atlas robot, they said Wednesday. Boston-based teams from TRI and Boston Dynamics will conduct research on use cases for AI-trained robots in areas such as human-robot interaction, they said.

Toyota has said it’s made a breakthrough with AI in teaching robots to learn and Boston Dynamics, which was bought by Hyundai in 2020, has had commercial success with its robotic guard dog and a mobile robotic arm for re-stocking warehouses. Their collaboration comes as a potential challenge to other smart bot programs such as the Optimus robot showcased last week by rival Tesla. A number of humanoid robot startups also are attracting attention — and billions of dollars in capital.