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Hyundai takes full control of Boston Dynamics as SoftBank exits for $325 million
(startupfortune.com)
For Masayoshi Son, the Boston Dynamics exit looks small beside SoftBank's current AI infrastructure campaign. The Wall Street Journal reported in April that SoftBank is forming Roze AI, a new venture meant to use artificial intelligence and robotics to build physical infrastructure, including data centers. Tom's Hardware, citing the Financial Times, reported that Son is aiming for a $100 billion valuation for Roze and a public listing as soon as this year. That puts the $325 million Boston Dynamics proceeds in perspective. SoftBank is not walking away from robotics as an idea. It is moving toward robots as part of the AI buildout, tied to data centers, energy, land and construction.
To me that sounds like it might really be their plan. But it also seems like a shit plan.
They are already on the hook for such an insane amount of datacenter debt, now they sink even more debt into robots under the theory those might help with the first batch of debt? The timeline will never work out. Until autonomous robots are helpful on chaotic construction sites, maybe in 5 years at the soonest, the LLM craze will have gone bust.
