SoftBank plans to sell Boston Dynamics for $1 billion

Boston Dynamics, known for its robotic dogs, is now going to be sold again. The SoftBank Group plans to sell Boston Dynamics to Hyundai.

Boston Dynamics is a company that specializes in robotics. The robotic dog previously developed by this company has begun to be commercialized and applied in some areas.

Despite its reputation, Boston Dynamics is still at a loss. Bloomberg reports that SoftBank Group, which cannot see its profit target, finally decided to sell Boston Dynamics.

Boston Dynamics was originally a research institution born from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was acquired by Google in 2013 after being separated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for independent operations.

Google, which also has no hope of profitability and inability to integrate its business, decided in 2017 to sell Boston Dynamics to Japan’s SoftBank Group and has continued to this day.

“SoftBank.” by MIKI Yoshihito. (#mikiyoshihito) is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Now SoftBank Group is preparing to sell Boston Dynamics to Hyundai Korea. Hyundai is very well-suited to Boston Dynamics in the field of industrial robots.

It is expected that after the completion of the transaction, Boston Dynamics will also study industrial robots. For Hyundai, Boston Dynamics’ artificial intelligence and algorithms can help its research.

SoftBank intends to package and sell Boston Dynamics to Hyundai Korea for $1 billion.

It is still unknown whether the development direction of Boston Dynamics will change after the transaction. After all, SoftBank’s purchase of Boston Dynamics is purely for investment purposes.

While Hyundai’s acquisition of Boston Dynamics may hope for the field of industrial robots, it is difficult to say whether this will affect the existing research findings of Boston Dynamics.

Hyundai said that the company will continue to explore various investment and cooperation opportunities. Of course, the current transaction has not been reached and SoftBank Group has not issued a public statement.