Autonomous Solutions Inc., or ASI, and SoftBank Group Corp. last week announced a joint venture to commercialize brand-agnostic autonomous heavy equipment to address severe labor shortages and accelerate infrastructure projects worldwide.
“Large infrastructure projects, from roadways and airports to railways and waste management, are being built at a pace and complexity that traditional labor-intensive methods struggle to match,” Mel Torrie, CEO of ASI, told The Robot Report. “Skilled equipment operators are hard to find, and coordinating mixed fleets across a big jobsite is a real bottleneck. That’s exactly the problem this joint venture is built to solve — bringing autonomous, OEM-agnostic fleet coordination to that kind of scale.”
Founded in 2000, ASI has developed the Mobius industrial autonomous fleet orchestration system. The Mendon, Utah-based company said its systems work across mixed vehicle environments and offer long-term operational scalability and efficiency. Its customers include global Fortune 500 companies across sectors such as heavy construction, agriculture, logistics, and landscaping.
Partners aim to modernize construction with software-defined robotics
ASI said its expanded partnership with SoftBank represents a major effort to modernize civil construction through open-architecture robotics. The companies claimed the initiative gives contractors a scalable, software-driven path to automate high-capacity operations across every phase of development.
“This joint venture with SoftBank positions ASI at the forefront of autonomous construction innovation—built for scale, engineered for longevity, and open to every major equipment brand on the jobsite,” said Torrie. “Together, we offer automated OEM-agnostic heavy equipment solutions that let customers deploy mixed fleets of haul trucks, dozers, loaders, compactors, and more—all operating autonomously together across complex tasks, from earthmoving to vertical construction.”
Editor’s note: Torrie will be speaking at the 2026 RoboBusiness on Oct. 20 in a session titled “Designing the Robotics Ecosystem for Outdoor Autonomy.” Register now so you don’t miss this and all of the other current topics at the event.
Register now and help us celebrate 20 years of RoboBusiness!SoftBank backs ASI commercial expansion
As part of the collaboration, SoftBank has provided $225 million in new funding to ASI.
“Backed by world-class capital and 25+ years of proven technology, we’re not just advancing autonomy—we’re inviting the industry’s leading builders of large infrastructure projects, like roadways, airports, railways, waste management, and other adjacent applications, to shape the future of construction with us,” noted Torrie.
When asked if there is more to this than a software services company, Torrie responded, “The joint venture is specifically about developing and commercializing autonomous construction equipment for large infrastructure projects. ASI’s platform already orchestrates mixed fleets of equipment in production today, across haul trucks, dozers, loaders, and compactors; this is about bringing that capability to bear at a scale that requires real capital behind it, across everything from earthmoving to vertical construction.”
He asserted that infrastructure investment tends to concentrate wherever active public and private capital flows into large projects—roadway expansion, airport modernization, rail, and similar large-scale builds. How does ASI plan to spend its new funding?
“Growing ASI’s commercial operations across the broader construction market is the goal,” said Torrie.
SoftBank has provided funding, and ASI brings experience commercializing OEM-agnostic, mixed-fleet autonomous systems. | Credit: ASI
Tell Us What You Think!