Last year, SoftBank proved to us that household robots will be within our reach in the future when it unveiled Pepper. A thousand models of the intelligent robot have already been made available to early adopting customers, but now SoftBank has received $236 million in funding from Alibaba and Foxconn to take the development and production of Pepper to the next level, which includes a business-centric variant of the robot. 

Remember Pepper, the intelligent robot that SoftBank unveiled last year? Pepper goes on sale in Japan this coming weekend, but in advance of that launch SoftBank has revealed that Alibaba and manufacturer Foxconn have invested $118 million each in its robotics division. That deal will give Alibaba and Foxconn 20 percent shares in SoftBank Robotics Holdings (known as SBRH), with SoftBank retaining a dominant 60 percent stake. “SoftBank, Alibaba and Foxconn will build a structure to bring Pepper and other robotics businesses to global markets, and cooperate with the aim of spreading and developing the robotics industry on a worldwide scale,” SoftBank said in its announcement. SoftBank isn’t short on money, of course — it is building up quite a portfolio of e-commerce investments across Asia — but its two partners bring know-how, strategy and global networks to the table. So, it looks like Pepper has eventual world domination plans. Or, at least, plans to be helpful on an international scale.