Japan’s SoftBank Group announced on Monday that it will establish a joint venture with Symbotic, a U.S. warehouse and supply chain service provider, to operate a warehouse business based on artificial intelligence technology, and SoftBank Group will also increase its stake in the joint venture partner.

According to a statement released by the two companies on Monday, SoftBank Group and Symbotic will jointly invest $100 million in a joint venture called “Greenbox Systems Inc.” The joint venture will purchase $7.5 billion worth of AI warehousing systems from Symbotic for its warehouse facilities.

Symbotic CEO Rick Cohen said, “We are excited to partner with SoftBank on this joint venture, which will help realize Symbotic’s dream of transforming the traditional supply chain.” He said Greenbox could bring Symbotic’s existing technology to a wider audience, expanding the company’s market opportunity.

The investment is another sign of SoftBank Group’s emphasis and bet on robotics and automation, an increasingly important area for the Japanese tech investment giant.

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Recently, artificial intelligence has become the new hot spot in the tech industry, which is seen as potentially replacing human labor in a variety of industries, from artistic creation to manufacturing to supply chains, and tech giants including Microsoft have invested heavily in AI.

In June, SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son also said that in the investment of technology companies, SoftBank will soon shift to “offensive mode”, and SoftBank will create new investment achievements in the field of artificial intelligence.

Vikas J. Parekh, a senior executive at SoftBank Investment Advisors, said in a statement that Greenbox will tap into the huge potential of artificial intelligence and other enabling technologies in the supply chain, as well as make warehouse automation available to more businesses through other service products.

SoftBank owns 65 percent of the joint venture, with Symbotic owning the rest. It is reported that in 2022, Symbotic completed its listing through a backdoor, and SoftBank is among the shareholders of the shell company.

SoftBank already owns 5 percent of Symbotic and will expand its stake by buying 17.8 million shares from Cohen. Symbotic will also provide SoftBank with warrants equal to 2 percent of the company’s outstanding shares. After the adjustment of the shareholding structure, Cohen remains the controlling shareholder of Symbotic Company.

Symbotic shares fell 4.4 per cent to close at $43.68 on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, giving it a capitalisation of $24bn. Since the beginning of the year, the company’s share price has soared 263 percent.

Symbotic, based in Wilmington, Massachusetts, develops a variety of storage robots that help warehouse facilities automatically pack customer orders. Walmart, which is also a customer, has plans to deploy Symbotic’s robotic systems in all 42 of its regional distribution centers across the United States.