The Strategist

Google's parent company sets up subsidiary to develop software for robots



07/26/2021 - 03:54



Alphabet has created a new company to develop software for robots. It has emerged from X, a division in which the company tests bold ideas and designs.



Google's parent company Alphabet has spun off Intrinsic, which develops software for robots, into a separate subsidiary, says a blog post on the website of X, Alphabet's unit for testing and verifying new ideas and technologies, under which Intrinsic originally developed.

Intrinsic is trying to create software for industrial robots that would make them easier for other businesses to use and cheaper. As Intrinsic CEO Wendy Tan White noted that the company wants to "unlock the creative and economic potential of industrial robotics for millions of other businesses, entrepreneurs and developers". Right now, creating a program for a robot in a factory can take hundreds of hours, and the robots themselves are very expensive, she noted.

Intrinsic will work in Alphabet's Other Bets segment. Projects in this segment have so far only generated losses, CNBC wrote. This segment lost $1.145 billion in the first quarter alone on revenue of $198 million, the channel noted.

Among others, X developed the project of Internet distribution from a network of balloons in the upper atmosphere near the edge of space (Loon), the development of unmanned cars (Waymo) and smart glasses for industry (Glass Enterprise Edition).

source: cnbc.com