Toyota buys Google Inc.’s robotics division: Boston Dynamics

27 Feb 2019

Toyota has bought Google’s robotics division, Boston Dynamics as stated by the reports. Rumors have it that Alphabet Inc. that holds Google Inc. was looking for a customer or Boston Dynamics. Rumors also had it that the deal for the robotics division of Google was in its last stages and is set to be sealed soon. New reports suggest that the secretive buyer of Boston Dynamics is none other than Toyota. Amazon was also supposedly a part of the deal as they were also gunning for the robotics division, but as it seems Toyota might just have had the better.

Boston Dynamics was working on to make a robotic product for the consumers for quite a few years. Considering the fact that success was not even near, the higher management might just have thought to sell the company. Toyota seems to be the one to have bagged the deal, but the specifics are not that clear as of yet.

Before that company was acquired by Google Inc, they had contracts with the military. The contracts were held up to but it was clear that Google was seemingly more interested in making consumers products rather that fulfilling the contract with the military. With the increasing conflicts, Andy Rubin, one of the cofounders of Boston Dynamics decided to leave resisting Google’s plans for consumer products.

He stated, “At the end of the day what I saw was a sense of us and them instead of a we — we weren’t part of Google, we were sort of a separate thing,” said a former Boston employee.”

According to the reports, Google Inc. wanted Boston Dynamics to make robots with conventional wheels, when they wanted to go with the robotic leg research. This deal might just be helpful for both Toyota with their research center and for Boston Dynamics as well.

View Other Reports