China has stopped SoftBank from buying ABB’s robotics business inside the country. SoftBank told ABB that China’s foreign investment security review office has prohibited the acquisition, the Swiss automation group said in an update.
The Financial Times reports that China has told SoftBank it won’t allow the purchase of the division to go ahead. ABB’s wording is narrower, though. It names only “the ABB Robotics business in China,” and it doesn’t call off the sale: the two companies “are in close dialogue and are working constructively on the transaction.”
ABB’s statement gives no reason. The FT says China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) raised concerns that robotics data could go overseas and train AI models. It also reportedly wanted assurances that some of the unit’s manufacturing and intellectual property would stay in China.
China is the unit’s biggest market, the FT adds, and ABB does more than sell there. Its $150 million (about Php 9.5 billion) robot factory and research center in Shanghai opened in 2022. ABB said at the opening that its strategy was “in China, for China,” with “over 90 percent of sales supported by our factory.”
ABB agreed to sell the whole division for $5.375 billion (about Php 341 billion) in October 2025, dropping a plan to spin it off. The unit has about 7,000 staff and had revenue of $2.3 billion (about Php 146 billion) in 2024. “SoftBank’s next frontier is Physical AI,” SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son said at the time.
The office behind this decision sits under the NDRC. In April, it prohibited Meta’s purchase of Manus, the AI agent startup, and told the parties to undo the deal.
ABB’s October 20th report still had the sale closing this quarter. SoftBank is reportedly trying to work out what went wrong and whether it can apply again.
