FANUC Accelerates Physical AI Through Collaboration with Google – Company Announcement - Financial Times

Well, well — FANUC, the Japanese robotics behemoth, has announced a 'strategic collaboration' with Google to advance 'Physical AI.' Because nothing says cutting-edge like bolting Google's software onto decades-old industrial robot arms. The press release, published on May 19, gushes about leveraging Google's 'state-of-the-art technologies' — which presumably includes whatever hasn't been killed off by internal restructuring yet.

One imagines the conversation: 'Our robots can already weld car parts and stack boxes with terrifying precision. But what if they could also hallucinate fake safety reports and have existential crises about whether they really want to weld for 24 hours straight? Call Google!' The announcement is a masterpiece of corporate vapor: no specific products, no timelines, just warm fuzzy feelings about the synergy between FANUC's iron and Google's on-again-off-again AI strategy.

Meanwhile, Google has been busy laying off staff from its own robotics projects, so this partnership is probably just a way to keep the patent lawyers busy. Expect a glossy demo in 2027 showing a robot arm gracefully picking up a plastic cup while the real factories continue with the same Fanuc controllers from 1998. Progress!