Boston Dynamics' Atlas appears in 2026 World Cup halftime show

Boston Dynamics' humanoid robot Atlas handed the match ball to the referee and performed a series of soccer celebration moves during halftime of the 2026 FIFA World Cup round-of-16 match between Norway and Brazil on July 5. This was the first public appearance of the production version of Atlas and the first robot halftime performance in World Cup history. The behavior is based on reinforcement-learning whole-body control training and was tested in both the lab and real environments; it was a live demonstration rather than an on-site autonomous operational deployment. The event is related to Hyundai's "Next Starts Now" project.