Many MindedBeijing vetoes SoftBank's purchase of ABB's robot unit in China
Chinese regulators have blocked SoftBank Group's planned acquisition of ABB's robotics division, and ABB confirmed the block to The Robot Report. The deal is valued at $5.375 billion and was announced more than a year ago. The prohibition came from China's Office of the Working Mechanism for Foreign Investment Security Review and applies to the acquisition in China. The Financial Times reported it first.
Per the Financial Times, authorities were worried about robotics data moving overseas and being used to train AI models. That is secondhand: the article does not quote Chinese officials. The business at stake is large. ABB Robotics has about 7,000 employees, and its China business grew 32% in Q3 2026. About 90% of the robots it builds for Chinese customers are made locally at its Shanghai factory. ABB says it and SoftBank remain in close dialogue and are working constructively on the transaction.
This is a friction signal for goods. Robots get cheaper when manufacturers consolidate, scale production and learn from fleets of machines in many countries. If robot data and AI training are treated as sovereign assets, that pooling fragments along national lines. The pattern is spreading. China stopped Meta's $2 billion purchase of the AI startup Manus in April. In the U.S., the FCC has banned new foreign-made advanced robotic devices, and a Section 232 report on robotics imports has been submitted to President Trump. That report cites advanced robots as supporting the U.S. military.
What to watch: whether ABB and SoftBank restructure the deal, for example by excluding China. Also watch whether Section 232 leads to tariffs on foreign-made robots. The article says that outcome is unclear. The Robot Report has asked sources for more comment, which had not yet been published.
Source: The Robot Report