Toyota is planning to deploy 400,000 robots as part of a $6.4 billion annual investment plan to automate assembly lines, as the Japanese giant draws on its history to make up ground in the humanoids race.
Toyota has 20 years of data to pull from, giving it an edge over upstart Chinese firms that excel in hardware but lag Western companies in devising robots’ “brains,” allowing the carmaker to integrate “robots, AI, and production processes into a superior operating system,” a Bernstein analyst told the Financial Times; that could also allow Toyota to plug the aging country’s labor shortfalls.
“Toyota is developing its own large behavioural models,” an investor said. “Whoever controls the software layer will control global manufacturing.”
— Brendan Ruberry