SoftBank Invests $225M in ASI and Forms Autonomous Construction Venture

SoftBank Group has invested $225 million in Autonomous Solutions Inc., the Utah robotics company known as ASI, and the two have formed a joint venture to build and sell autonomous construction equipment at scale.

ASI is based in Mendon, Utah, with offices in Salt Lake City, the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and Longmont, Colorado. SoftBank is separately capitalizing the joint venture.

Twenty-Five Years of Driverless Heavy Equipment

ASI has spent more than 25 years automating heavy machinery. Its Mobius platform orchestrates fleets of autonomous equipment across mixed brands, so an operator can run vehicles from different manufacturers under one system.

The company works across construction, agriculture, logistics, and landscaping, serves Fortune 500 companies, and tests on a more than 200-acre proving ground in northern Utah.

"Together, we offer automated OEM-agnostic heavy equipment solutions that let customers deploy mixed fleets all operating autonomously together," said ASI CEO Mel Torrie.

What the Joint Venture Does

The new venture is aimed at large infrastructure work: roadways, airports, railways and waste management, along with civil construction and material handling.

"This joint venture with SoftBank positions ASI at the forefront of autonomous construction innovation—built for scale, engineered for longevity," Torrie said.

Bisnow reported the investment as SoftBank's move into automating industrial construction fleets.

Why Construction

Construction has been one of the slowest industries to automate, and contractors on large infrastructure projects face persistent shortages of skilled equipment operators. Retrofitting existing machines, rather than selling new autonomous ones, lowers the barrier for fleet owners who have already spent heavily on equipment.

That OEM-agnostic approach is ASI's central bet, and it's why a mixed fleet of excavators, haul trucks, and dozers from different makers can run under one orchestration layer.

Why It Matters

SoftBank has aggressively backed robotics and AI infrastructure, and a $225 million check plus a separately funded joint venture is a substantial commitment to a company that has operated quietly for over two decades.

For ASI, the deal converts long-running engineering work into the capital and distribution needed to sell into major infrastructure programs, where the buyers are large contractors and government projects rather than early adopters.

Source

Business Wire — "ASI and SoftBank Group Form Joint Venture to Advance Autonomous Construction at Scale"