China Reportedly Set to Block SoftBank's $5.375 Billion ABB Robotics Deal; Foreign Ministry Refers Questions to Regulators
Beijing — China has told Japan's SoftBank Group that it will not approve its acquisition of the robotics business of Swiss-Swedish industrial group ABB, the Financial Times reported on November 5, citing several people familiar with the matter, over concerns that robotics technology and data accumulated by ABB in China could be transferred overseas. Asked about the report by Agence France-Presse at the regular press briefing on November 5, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun did not confirm it, saying only that the question should be put to the competent Chinese authorities.
According to the report, SoftBank was notified by China's National Development and Reform Commission, which oversees security and supply-chain stability reviews. SoftBank announced the $5.375 billion acquisition in October 2025 and had expected to close it in mid-to-late 2026. The deal cleared China's antitrust review in February but then stalled at the foreign-investment security review stage. Regulators reportedly explored conditions such as selling part of ABB's robotics business to Chinese owners or keeping some intellectual property in China, though people close to SoftBank said that in the days before the blocking decision it was unclear what conditions regulators had formally raised. The Financial Times account has not been publicly confirmed by Chinese authorities or by either company.
ABB's robotics business had $2.3 billion in sales in 2024, about 7 percent of the ABB group's revenue. China is the world's largest robotics market, and about 90 percent of the ABB robots sold in China are made at its Shanghai mega factory. Han Chen, president of ABB Robotics China, said on October 12 that the transaction was progressing well and remained within its preset timetable.
SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son framed the acquisition as a step toward his 'Physical AI' vision, combining super intelligence (SI) with robotics. SoftBank is also a major investor in OpenAI, part of the backdrop to the reported Chinese concern that technology and data could flow to the overseas super intelligence (SI) industry.
Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：工厂里的 ABB 工业机器人（资料图）。照片：Dependability，CC BY-SA 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: ABB industrial robots in a factory (file photo). Photo by Dependability, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
