China's foreign-investment security review office, the Office of the Working Mechanism for Foreign Investment Security Review, prohibited SoftBank Group's $5.375 billion acquisition of ABB's robotics division, ABB confirmed, after regulators raised concerns about robotics data being transferred overseas and used to train AI models; the Financial Times first reported the block (
The Robot Report). The sale was agreed in October 2025 with completion then targeted for mid-to-late 2026; ABB says the companies remain "in close dialogue and are working constructively on the transaction," leaving it open to other approvals. China is a growing market for ABB Robotics (a 32% Q3 2026 increase there) and about 90% of its Chinese-customer machines are built at the Shanghai factory. The block lands beside a wider political squeeze on robot deals: China stopped Meta's $2 billion purchase of Manus in April, while the US has produced a Section 232 report on robotics imports citing humanoid and quadruped robots and the FCC has banned new foreign-made advanced robotic devices (
RobotsBeat). Watch: whether a restructured deal clears the review, the remaining approvals, effects on ABB's Shanghai operations and Chinese order book, and how the block interacts with the US onshoring measures.
