Samsung Electronics Co. and Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) will buy minority stakes in Skild AI Inc. to bolster their presence in the nascent consumer robotics industry, according to people familiar with the matter.

Samsung Electronics will invest $10 million in Skild, which develops robotics software, the people said. Nvidia will invest $25 million.

The funding is part of Skild’s Series B round, which was led by Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp. for $100 million and values Skild at about $4.5 billion.

Inside Samsung, the company sees investing in Skild as a way to get to know the startup and its talent without making a big commitment. Another reason: to keep pace with other South Korean conglomerates like LG, Hanwha and Mirae Asset, which have units investing $5 million to $10 million in Skild.

Nvidia has begun pushing the idea of “physical AI” — meaning robots and self-driving cars — as important revenue drivers of the future as the technology matures. The chipmaker has semiconductors, software and services designed to accelerate the deployment of robots that can think for themselves.

Samsung believes some aspects of Skild’s solution are inferior to others on the market, the people said. Representatives for Samsung and Nvidia declined to comment. A representative for Skild didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Robotics is quickly becoming a major area of future growth for tech companies around the world, with Apple (AAPL), Meta Platforms Inc., Amazon (AMZN) and Alphabet Inc.’s Google (GOOG) all investing heavily in the field.

Meanwhile, Tesla Inc. has long been preparing to launch its Optimus robot.

A few months ago, Samsung took a minority stake in Physical Intelligence, which also develops the underlying robotics algorithms, for a small investment. The startup has raised about $400 million and was most recently valued at about $2.4 billion. Nvidia has invested in companies such as Figure AI and Serve Robotics.

Samsung already sells robot vacuums, but its ambitions go far beyond that, including humanoid robots and other home appliances. Later this year, Samsung will partner with Google to launch Ballie, a soccer ball-sized machine that projects videos onto a wall.

Samsung is also the largest shareholder in humanoid robot maker Rainbow Robotics. The company is at the core of its work in this area.