The business had been up for sale for over a year because its parent company had not found a way for it to generate revenue.
The Japanese telecommunications and internet corporation has agreed to purchase the makers of the “Big Dog” robot from Alphabet for an undisclosed sum.
Also acquired in the deal is a lesser known Alphabet subsidiary, a bipedal robotics company called Schaft, which was originally Japanese-owned.
After failing to meet attempts to fulfil US military contracts, Boston Dynamics had been on sale for over a year as Alphabet reportedly struggled to find a way to generate revenue from the company.
Its research and development have continued to prompt interest, however.
The research and development of the original Big Dog robot was funded by the US military’s Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) .
Other smart robots developed by Boston Dynamics includes the bipedal robot Atlas, which is 175cm tall.
Video released by the company last year showed the Atlas robot being pushed over by a human and then standing up again.
A previous version of Atlas struggled at the recent “robolympics” – the DARPA Robotics Challenge – when it fell repeatedly and needed a crane to get up.
Additionally, the “Big Dog” robot has been shown balancing and navigating difficult terrain.
A leaked video has also revealed the “nightmare inducing” Handle robot. It can be seen spinning around, jumping over an obstacle and dropping off a kerb all while maintaining its balance.
Softbank’s acquisition of Boston Dynamics follows that of it purchasing Cambridge-based chip design business ARM for over £24bn last year.
The Japanese technology giant also led a round of funding into a British VR company called Improbable last month.
It is not yet clear whether Boston Dynamics become a business unit within Softbank, or if it would be left to function independently as part of the company’s Vision Fund, the $93bn technology investment fund with which it has been making headlines.
