Robotic supply agency Kiwibot buys Taipei chipmaker, citing US/China tensions

Bay Space/Colombia-based supply robotics agency Kiwibot this week introduced that it has acquired Auto Mobility Options. The Taipei agency produces chips particularly for the world of robotics and autonomous driving. Particulars of the transaction haven’t been disclosed. Kiwi founder and CEO Felipe Chávez Cortés does, nevertheless, inform TechCrunch that rising tensions between the U.S. and China are a key motivator for the acquisition.

Kiwibot calls the deal a “vital milestone in each firms’ journeys towards innovation and safeguarding privateness within the robotics trade, notably for clever robots sourced from China and deployed within the Western markets.

That is possible going to be an instructive mannequin for a lot of within the trade, in mild of the Senate’s large push for ByteDance to promote its massively profitable social media platform, TikTok. Previous to this, the U.S. authorities had set its sights on varied Chinese language tech giants, together with Huawei and DJI.

Taiwan’s tenuous geopolitical state of affairs, coupled with its vastly outsized share of the semiconductor market, has positioned it on the heart of the battle. Some within the authorities have even gone as far as suggesting the USA bomb Taiwanese chip giant TSMC ought to the island nation be invaded by China. Management over the corporate’s amenities would give a rustic a close to monopoly for sure chip verticals.

Smaller operations like Auto Mobility Options are much less more likely to be an instantaneous focus, although it’s value declaring that the corporate produces chips in each Taipei and Shenzhen, the latter of which is situated in South China, now a 20-minute subway trip from Hong Kong.

In a press release tied to the information, Chávez Cortés cites cybersecurity considerations as a key motivator. “The acquisition of Auto is a game-changer for us, bringing a wealth of technological innovation and a strong patent portfolio that will significantly enhance our cybersecurity measures for AI-powered robotics,” he notes. “This move not only strengthens our position in the market but also connects the manufacturing expertise from Asia with the AI development in the West securely.”

Kiwibot says the deal can even assist the UC Berkeley spinout set up a presence in Asia, owing to Auto’s footprint in Taiwan and China. Kiwi has to date discovered its greatest successes on school campuses.