Google has added Boston Dynamics, the maker of massive, animal-like, walking robots, to its growing robotics drive, it was confirmed on Friday.

The Massachusetts-based company is famous for its Cheetah robot which runs at speeds of 29mph and the Big Dog which can pick up and throw cement blocks. It also carries out research for the Pentagon.

Boston Dynamics recently revealed a modified version of the faster-than-Usain-Bolt Cheetah robot, called the Wildcat, and has also experimented with a human-like droid called Atlas.

The company will join former Android chief Andy Rubin's new robotics department and is the eighth robotics company Google has purchased in the last six months, the New York Times reports.

Awesome and terrifying

"The future is looking awesome!" Rubin tweeted following the report, but so far Google has offered no official comment on the buyout

Details of the acquisition are thin on the ground at present, but it appears that Boston Dynamics will honour its $10.8 million contract with the US government's Defense Agency Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

The growing spate of acquisitions will increase speculation and fears regarding where Google plans to take its robotics initiative and the Boston Dynamics purchase is definitely the highest profile to date.

You can see some of the company's awesome, and mildly terrifying, creations in the videos below. For some reason we have the Terminator theme stuck in our heads now.

Via Engadget