An ABB robotic on a manufacturing line on the Sony UK Technology Centre in Pencoed, UK.
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SoftBank Group on Monday stated it had agreed to buy the robotics division of Swiss engineering agency ABB for $5.4 billion, because the Japanese big seems to bolster its synthetic intelligence performs.
The deal, which is topic to regulatory approval globally, means ABB will now not look to spin off its robotics enterprise as a individually listed firm.
“SoftBank’s next frontier is Physical AI. Together with ABB Robotics, we will unite world-class technology and talent under our shared vision to fuse Artificial Super Intelligence and robotics — driving a groundbreaking evolution that will propel humanity forward,” Masayoshi Son, founding father of SoftBank, stated in an announcement.
Artificial Super Intelligence, or ASI, is Son’s idea of AI that’s 10,000 instances smarter than people.
Son has seemed to place SoftBank at the center of the potential AI boom via investments and acquisitions in totally different areas of expertise. SoftBank owns chip designer Arm, for instance, and has a serious stake in OpenAI.
SoftBank already has some robot-related investments, together with AutoStore Holdings and Agile Robots.
The Japanese conglomerate isn’t new to robotics. In 2012, SoftBank took a majority stake in a French firm referred to as Aldebaran. Two years later, the 2 firms launched a humanoid robotic referred to as Pepper — a wager that in the end flopped, however robotics has now re-emerged as a key focus for the Japanese big.
Morten Wierod, who grew to become CEO of ABB in August 2024, has pushed the spin-off of the corporate’s robotics unit as a strategic transfer.
ABB stated in an announcement that the sale “will create immediate value to ABB shareholders.” The firm stated it is going to use the proceeds from the transaction “in line with its well-established capital allocation principles.”
ABB stated it anticipated money proceeds of roughly $5.3 billion. The anticipated separation price is round $200 million, about half of which is already in ABB’s 2025 steering.