Report: Alphabet may sell robotics firm to Toyota
Alphabet's Boston Dynamics has produced some of the coolest (and scariest) robotics advances in recent years, and now may soon be looking for a new home.
According to Nikkei Asian Review, Toyota is in "final talks" to acquire two robotics divisions from Google-parent Alphabet: Boston Dynamics and Schaft, a company created by two former Tokyo University professors. Both divisions were acquired by Google in 2013.
The move will allow Toyota to strengthen its artificial intelligence division, the Toyota Research Institute, which the automaker created in January. The institute currently has offices in Palo Alto, Calif., and Cambridge, Mass., not far from Boston Dynamics' main headquarters in Waltham. The report says the deal will likely be financed in part by the $1 billion budgeted for the institute's research and development over the next five years.
It remains to be seen where Boston Dynamics or Schaft will fit in at Toyota, but the company has been dabbling in robotics for years, mainly with regards to its automotive assembly line. The company also created a personal robot called the Partner Robot in 2007 that could walk like a human and even play the violin and trumpet. Toyota has also been experimenting with robotics to help those who have lost the use of one of their legs from paralysis to walk again, among other robotic ventures.
Alphabet first put the robotics companies up for sale in March, with Bloomberg reporting the company was concerned about the near-term ability to generate revenue from the division. The company has benefited from millions of views on YouTube of the robots in action, its latest from February racking up over 16 million views. It featured a robot walking in the snow, lifting boxes and taking abuse from humans.
Toyota would not confirm the deal to Paste BN but said the company does "regularly discuss possible collaborations with outside partners to help create ever-better cars and to advance our R&D efforts. We do not have any further details to disclose about any of these discussions at this time."
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