China blocks SoftBank's $5.375 billion purchase of ABB's robotics division
From the Robots digest for Nov 5, 2026
Thread: robots — SoftBank–ABB robotics sale · new
What happened: China's foreign-investment security review office, the Office of the Working Mechanism for Foreign Investment Security Review, has prohibited SoftBank Group's $5.375 billion acquisition of ABB's robotics division, ABB confirmed. Regulators' concerns centered on robotics data being transferred overseas and used to train AI models, the Financial Times first reporting the block.
What's genuinely new: A concrete outcome for the sale agreed in October 2025 with completion then targeted for mid-to-late 2026 — a regulator has said no, rather than merely delaying. China matters to ABB Robotics out of proportion to any other single market: orders there grew 32% in Q3 2026, and about 90% of the machines ABB builds for Chinese customers are manufactured locally at its Shanghai factory. The block also lands in a wider political squeeze on robotics deals: China's review office stopped Meta's $2 billion purchase of the AI startup Manus in April on national-security grounds, while the US has moved the other way — a Section 232 report on robotics and industrial-machinery imports specifically citing humanoid and quadruped robots as supporting the military, and the FCC already banning new foreign-made advanced robotic devices. ABB says the companies remain "in close dialogue and are working constructively on the transaction," leaving open whether a restructured deal could still close.
Watch: Whether the transaction proceeds restructured or is abandoned, the remaining approvals outside China, any impact on ABB's Shanghai manufacturing and its Chinese order book, and how the block ripples into the US onshoring measures already in motion.
Links: The Robot Report · RobotsBeat · Nov 5, 11:25 AM ET