Google DeepMind is building a Watertown robotics lab to house a new hardware team

Google DeepMind is constructing a robotics lab in Watertown, Mass., the company told the Boston Globe on Oct 15. It will occupy the Arsenal on the Charles building at 200 Talcott Ave., where Google signed a lease for 35,000 square feet earlier this summer, according to a City of Watertown permit. Construction is scheduled to finish in 2027.

DeepMind is moving from supplying robot software to building robot hardware, and the way to tell will be whether Watertown yields a DeepMind-designed machine rather than another Gemini Robotics model running on another company's robot. Its robotics work so far has centered on Gemini Robotics models and physical AI software rather than on a machine of its own.

A hardware team assembled from Boston Dynamics

Aaron Saunders spent 22 years at Waltham-based Boston Dynamics and was its chief technology officer. He joined DeepMind in 2025 as vice president of hardware engineering. On LinkedIn this week he wrote that the team, built over the past year, is "creating a first-class lab to house this team and take robotics to the next level," placing it in the "Cambridge area." His post says DeepMind will hire machinists, engineers and researchers, with more news in 2027.

The hiring list is the evidence: a group that only trains models has no need for machinists. Saunders' Boston Dynamics work spanned BigDog, Spot and Atlas, and the Globe reports DeepMind is working to put Gemini into robots, including a humanoid that walks, talks and handles tasks such as picking items off a shelf and sealing a trash bag. The Verge reports Google is also absorbing Intrinsic, Alphabet's robotics moonshot.

The lease came with no robot

The lease is smaller than the 50,000-square-foot Kendall Square space that Walden Robotics, a Toyota spinoff whose product is a humanoid, signed earlier this month. Neither Saunders' post nor the Globe account names a new DeepMind robot. Google declined to comment to the Globe. Google already runs a Kendall Square office with about 2,000 local workers, and Tutor Intelligence sits in Watertown. OpenAI's Sam Altman has said OpenAI would "definitely do a humanoid," so hardware is now a declared front.

If the Watertown team mostly builds test rigs for Gemini Robotics models, the lease will read as research space. If a DeepMind machine comes out of it, the company has changed what it sells.