SoftBank Group has agreed to buy the robotics business of Swiss engineering group ABB in a $5.4 billion deal, as the Japanese investor forges ahead with a strategy to fuse robotics and artificial intelligence.

The acquisition, announced on Wednesday, is the latest by founder and CEO Masayoshi Son to establish Softbank as a core player in the development of artificial intelligence.

SoftBank pushed into humanoid robotics a decade ago with its Pepper robot but later scaled back its ambitions.

Its recent investments in the sector include Berkshire Grey and AutoStore, and it also led a $40 billion funding round in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and in March bought chip design company Ampere for $6.5 billion.

SOFTBANK’S STRATEGY: MERGING AI WITH ROBOTICS

“SoftBank’s next frontier is Physical AI,” Son

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