Google has acquired eight different robotics companies in the last year, and has just added a major partner in their quest for a robot army: Foxconn. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the “long time Apple manufacturing partner” is interested in putting Google’s robots on the assembly line.
“The cooperation comes as Foxconn has been striving to accelerate automation efforts at its factories amid challenges of rising labor costs and workplace disputes in China, where it has more than a million workers,” the Journal reports. “Foxconn’s chairman has reiterated his ambitions to build factories with robots in recent years as the company seeks to transform itself into a high-tech manufacturer focusing on high-margin, capital-intensive products such as automobile and medical equipment.”