Google sells off Boston Dynamics to SoftBank

Japanese tech company SoftBank will acquire Boston Dynamics, a high-profile robotics firm that was picked up by Google X in December 2013 and then moved under the Alphabet umbrella. Boston Dynamics is famous for creating a series of animal-like robots, including the original sounds-like-a-swarm-of-bees BigDog, robot-land-speed-record-holder Cheetah, the militarised AlphaDog, and a couple of bipedal humanoid robots (Petman, Atlas) as well.

Terms of the deal haven't been disclosed by SoftBank or Alphabet, nor do we know how much Google X originally paid for Boston Dynamics. It is probably not a small sum, though. As part of the deal SoftBank is also picking up Schaft, a smaller humanoid robotics group that Google acquired just before Boston Dynamics. Alphabet

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