Alphabet's Robotics Arm Intrinsic Consolidates Position With Latest Acquisition

  • Alphabet Inc's GOOG GOOGL Intrinsic division acquired several divisions within Open Robotics, famous for robotics software packages Gazebo and Robotic Operating System (ROS).
  • The financial terms of the deal remained undisclosed.
  • Intrinsic bought Open Source Robotics Corporation (OSRC), the for-profit arm of Open Robotics, and Open Source Robotics Corporation Singapore (OSRC-SG), known for efforts on Open-RMF for interoperability between fleets of robots and physical infrastructure, TechCrunch reports.
  • Open Robotics' nonprofit arm, Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF), will remain in charge of the open source intellectual property, project governance, and growing the ROS, Gazebo, and Open-RMF communities. 
  • "Together, we will give the robotics community great new features in ROS, Gazebo, and Open-RMF, while also building new products and services on top … You can expect ROS 2 Iron Irwini to be available in May 2023 on schedule," said Open Robotics co-founder and former CEO Brian Gerkey.  
  • Gerkey will join Intrinsic as part of the OSRC team post-acquisition but will continue to serve on the board of OSRF.
  • OSRF was founded in 2012 to support "the development, distribution, and adoption of open-source software for use in robotics research, education, and product development."
  • OSRC launched in September 2016 and, together with OSRF, became known as Open Robotics. 
  • Intrinsic spun out of Alphabet's X R&D lab and led by Wendy Tan White, the former VP of Moonshots at Alphabet, focused primarily on developing control software for industrial robots.
  • Intrinsic plans to launch a software layer in 2023 capable of interfacing with automotive assembly, electronics manufacturing, and logistics robots.
  • Just a few months back, Intrinsic scooped fellow robotic software firm Vicarious.
  • Google held $116.3 billion in cash and equivalents as of September 30.
  • Price Action: GOOG shares traded lower by 0.99% at $90.30 in the premarket on the last check Friday.
  • Photo via Company
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