Mentioned:
One of the largest retailers in the United States of America is taking a bet on the future of robotics. But, why?
What’s happening:
- Robotics automation company Symbotic (NASDAQ: SYM) has entered into a deal with Walmart (NYSE: WMT) to purchase their robotics business for $200M USD in cash
By the numbers:
- Symbotic will pay $200M USD to acquire Walmart’s existing robotics business and technology, with the potential of another payment of $320M USD upon the successful completion of milestones
- Walmart will pay $520M USD to Symbotic in order to accelerate the development of automated robotics that can be used in their pickup and delivery centres in the United States
Why it matters:
- This is one of the first large scale deals focused on robotics between two publicly traded companies in the United States, which represents a major paradigm shift for the future of autonomous robots
Going deeper:
- The race to develop leading edge robotics technology has been quickly heating up, which has largely been fuelled by new launches from publicly listed companies and even OpenAI making their first foray into developing their own robotics hardware
