China has prohibited the acquisition of ABB's robotics division by SoftBank. ABB itself confirmed the news on Wednesday, 5 November 2026, in a statement on the progress of the sale, valued at $5.375 billion.
According to ABB, SoftBank informed it that China's Office of the Working Mechanism for Foreign Investment Security Review has prohibited the acquisition of the ABB Robotics business in China. The decision affects the business in China, but ABB says the global deal has not been cancelled.
The $5.375 billion deal
On 8 October 2025, ABB announced an agreement to sell its Robotics division to SoftBank for an enterprise value of $5.375 billion, dropping an earlier plan to spin the unit off as a separately listed company. The transaction was subject to regulatory approvals and was expected to close in mid-to-late 2026.
The European Union cleared the deal in March 2026. As recently as 20 October, ABB still expected to complete the sale before the end of the year. The robotics division employs about 7,000 people and generated $2.3 billion in revenue in 2024, equivalent to 7% of ABB Group revenue.
The reason attributed to the decision
ABB did not disclose the reasons for the prohibition. According to the Financial Times, as reported by Reuters, China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) was concerned that robotics data generated in China could be transferred abroad and used to train artificial intelligence models, including those of OpenAI, in which SoftBank is a major investor. That explanation is attributed reporting, not an official confirmation from the Chinese authorities: at a press briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun neither confirmed nor denied the report and referred the matter to the competent authorities.
Reuters also reported that China is ABB's biggest robotics market, accounting for around 30% of the company's robot-related business.
What happens now
In its statement, ABB said the companies are "in close dialogue and are working constructively on the transaction". The company announced no new closing date and no approved alternative plan for the China unit. Until closing, ABB Robotics keeps selling and servicing robots under the ABB name.
For SoftBank, the purchase is part of its bet on robotics powered by artificial intelligence. When the deal was announced in October 2025, chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son said that "SoftBank's next frontier is Physical AI".
Why the decision matters
The block shows how data generated by industrial robots now carries weight in foreign-investment security reviews, not just price, technology or competition. With China accounting for around a third of ABB's robotics business, any restructuring of the deal will directly affect the value and final shape of the sale — and SoftBank's plan to combine robotics and artificial intelligence at global scale.
Image credit: ABB IRB 140 industrial robot. Photo by David Alejandro Elvira-Ortiz, Rene de Jesus Romero-Troncoso, Arturo Yosimar Jaen-Cuellar, Luis Morales-Velazquez and Roque Alfredo Osornio-Rios, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 license.
Fontes
- ABB — Update on divestment of ABB Robotics (5 November 2026)
- ByteNib — China blocks SoftBank's purchase of ABB's robotics business in China
- Reuters, via KSEV Radio — China blocks SoftBank's $5.4 billion takeover of ABB's robotics division, FT reports
- TechCrunch — SoftBank bulks up its robotics portfolio with ABB Group's robotics unit (8 October 2025)
Transparency: this article was produced with the help of artificial intelligence, cross-checked against public posts and online sources, and reviewed against the original sources cited above. Please consult the original sources to confirm the details.
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