Google has entered the competition for humanoid robots that combine artificial intelligence (AI) and robots.
Robot developer Aptronic announced on the 13th that it has attracted $350 million in investment to expand the scale of humanoid robot production.
Aptronic CEO Jeff Cardenas said, “The funding round was jointly led by B Capital and Capital Factory, and Google also participated in the investment.” The specific size of Google’s investment is unknown.
Since its founding in 2016, Aptronic has been developing an industrial humanoid robot named Apollo. One of its competitors is Tesla, which has developed the “Optimus” robot and is scheduled to be deployed in its own factory by the end of this year. Nvidia, Microsoft, and OpenAI also invested in humanoid development startup figure last year.
Google has invested in related companies such as acquiring and selling robot company Boston Dynamics in the past, but there are not many known cases of investing in humanoid robot companies.
According to Goldman Sachs, the global market for humanoid robots is expected to reach $38 billion by 2035.
JENNIFER KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
