Google is partnering with Johnson & Johnson to develop new technologies related to surgical robotics to benefit surgeons, patients and health care systems. Specifically, Ethicon, a medical device company in the Johnson & Johnson family of companies, has executed a definitive agreement to enter into a strategic collaboration with Google, working with the Life Sciences team on advancing surgical robotics.

The companies will bring together capabilities, intellectual property and expertise to create a robotic-assisted surgical platform capable of integrating advanced technologies with the goal of improving health care delivery in the operating room.

The surgical robotics effort aims to integrate Google’s expertise in computer science, advanced imaging and sensors into tools that surgeons use to operate. Real-time image analysis could help surgeons see better and software could highlight blood vessels, nerves or the edges of tumors that are difficult to see with the naked eye, Google said.

Google and Ethicon also hope to better organize the information surgeons need when they operate. Google said software could place images on the same screen that surgeons use to control robotic tools, reducing the need to look away at other screens during the procedures.

The transaction is expected to close during the second quarter of 2015. Financial terms were not disclosed.

If the partnership bears fruit, it could pit J&J against Intuitive Surgical, the Silicon Valley maker of the da Vinci robot, which enables surgeons to remotely control surgical instruments from a computer console.