Alphabet-own Intrinsic acquired the commercial subsidiary of Open Robotics, the firm behind the popular Robot Operating System (ROS).
Open questions remain as to how the acquisition will affect the future of ROS. In July 2021, Intrinsic graduated from X, Alphabet’s moonshot factory, to become an independent company at Alphabet. According to Intrinsic CEO Wendy Tan White, her company’s mission is to democratise access to robotics by building a software platform for developers, entrepreneurs and businesses. According to the leadership team behind ROS, the acquisition was a conscious move to help the ROS community at scale, by leveraging resources from Intrinsic and Alphabet’s track record of support for open-source software projects.
Read more about the acquisition, Open Robotics’s thoughts about the news, the Discourse message to the ROS community, and Intrinsic CEO Wendy Tan White and Open Robotics CEO Brian Gerkey’s Q&A on the new partnership.