After trying to sell Boston Dynamics for over a year, Google parent company Alphabet has finally found a buyer.
Japanese tech giant SoftBank Group Corp. announced on Thursday that a subsidiary has reached a deal to purchase the Waltham-based robotics company from Alphabet. As part of the transaction, SoftBank also agreed to acquire Schaft, a Japanese bipedal robotics company. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
It was first reported by Bloomberg in March 2016 that Alphabet was trying to find a new owner for Boston Dynamics, which it had acquired in 2013, after concluding that the robotics company wasn't likely "to produce a marketable product in the next few years." Boston Dynamics was part of Alphabet's robotics division, which Bloomberg said "was plagued by leadership changes, failures to collaborate between companies and an unsuccessful effort to recruit a new leader."
Boston Dynamics is the maker of BigDog, Atlas and other robots that have caught the world's attention through its YouTube videos. The videos, viewed by millions of people, have showcased the robots' abilities to walk and crawl on uneven terrain and even stand up after getting pushed down, among other incredible feats.
In SoftBank's announcement, the company said that its acquisition of Boston Dynamics "aligns with SoftBank's investments in paradigm-shifting technologies and its vision of catalyzing the next wave of smart robotics."
"Today, there are many issues we still cannot solve by ourselves with human capabilities. Smart robotics are going to be a key driver of the next stage of the Information Revolution, and Marc and his team at Boston Dynamics are the clear technology leaders in advanced dynamic robots," Masayoshi Son, SoftBank's chairman and CEO, said in a statement.
Mark Raibert, Boston Dynamics' CEO, said the company is excited to be part of "SoftBank's bold vision and its position creating the next technology revolution." He added: "We share SoftBank’s belief that advances in technology should be for the benefit of humanity."
