SoftBank continues to invest heavily in robotics

One of SoftBank's shrewder acquisitions in recent years was the France-based Aldebaran Robotics, maker of the sophisticated Pepper robot. Now, SoftBank Robotics is a leading robotics company and shows no signs of slowing down. It continues to invest heavily in robot technology. The company's Vision Fund recently allocated $114 million for Brain Corp., an AI company based in San Diego, California.

The Vision Fund is a $100 billion kitty for cutting-edge technology such as VR and the Internet of Things. Given SoftBank is heavily involved in robotics, the Brain Corp. funding seems to be a good match, although it is not clear what kind of future collaboration with SoftBank might happen. This particular backing will be used to develop AI further for commercial and consumer robots.

The commercial side of this research could prove fruitful sooner than many think. The retail industry in the US is aggressively spending on robots and cutting back on more expensive human labor, as the Wall Street Journal reported. Wal-Mart, for example, has purchased a few thousand Cash360 machines that can count money. The company said most people doing this job were moved to different positions, but the WSJ reports that more than 500 people have left the chain.

The combination of e-commerce and automation is hitting the retail sector especially hard. The WSJ reports that Wal-Mart has "15 percent fewer workers per square foot of store than a decade ago." Counting machines are not the only things for low-skilled workers to worry about either. Humanoid robots like Pepper are already taking over cash registers in some stores. Companies, including SoftBank and Google, believe they know the future and that it involves smarter robots at jobs companies do not want to pay for.