China blocks SoftBank’s $5.4 billion bid for ABB robotics business

China has blocked SoftBank Group’s planned $5.4 billion purchase of ABB’s robotics business, according to accounts citing ABB and reports about the decision.¹² The refusal is a major obstacle to completing the transaction, although European review had already ended in approval without conditions; that assessment is supported by the reported approval and the reported block.³ The deal’s quoted value is reported as $5.4 billion, while another account puts the agreed price at about $5.375 billion, so the two figures describe the same proposed acquisition at different levels of precision.¹³ The transaction was a purchase of ABB’s robotics operation by SoftBank, not a purchase of all of ABB, and the reported decision concerns that proposed transfer.²

SoftBank and ABB reached their agreement in October 2025, with SoftBank set to acquire the whole robotics business for about $5.375 billion.³ The planned closing was in the middle to later part of 2026, so the reported block interrupts a transaction that had not yet reached its scheduled completion.²³ Before the Chinese decision, approval remained outstanding in China and the United States as of late October, even though the European Commission had cleared the deal without conditions in March.³ That sequence means European clearance was one regulatory step, not evidence that every approval required for the transaction had been obtained.²³

The accounts identify the Chinese authority in different ways: one report names the National Development and Reform Commission, or NDRC, while another account of ABB’s statement names the Office of the Working Mechanism for Foreign Investment Security Review.¹² ABB’s statement, as described by The Japan Times, said a Chinese government agency had blocked the $5.4 billion transaction.² The difference in the reported agency names should be kept visible rather than treated as a single confirmed institutional description, because the accounts attribute the decision through separate formulations.¹² The available account of SoftBank’s next steps says the grounds for China’s decision had not been disclosed.³

One report said the NDRC was concerned that robotics information might move outside China and then be used in training artificial-intelligence models, including models developed by OpenAI.¹ That reported concern is distinct from a publicly disclosed formal explanation: another account said the decision’s grounds had not been made public in its description of SoftBank’s response.¹³ The proposed acquisition was linked to founder Masayoshi Son’s ambition to give SoftBank a larger role in artificial intelligence and in physical AI, which connects the industrial robotics business to the company’s stated strategic aim.² The reporting therefore presents a possible data concern alongside a strategic rationale for the acquisition, but does not establish that the concern was the Chinese agency’s official explanation.¹²³

ABB’s robotics operation makes robotic arms and industrial machinery for manufacturers, with BMW named as one example of a customer.² The business had around 7,000 employees and recorded about $2.3 billion in revenue during 2024.³ That revenue was roughly 7% of ABB’s total group revenue, placing the robotics unit as a defined part of a larger company rather than the whole of ABB’s business.³ China was described in one report as the largest market for the robotics operation, accounting for around 30% of that business; the figure refers to the unit, not to ABB’s group-wide revenue.¹³

SoftBank was reviewing what had gone wrong and whether it could submit a new request for Chinese approval, according to the account of its next steps.³ A renewed filing and possible remedies were described as routes the companies might consider in an effort to preserve the transaction, rather than as steps already completed.³ SoftBank and ABB were expected to respond, but the available reporting did not provide a completed response from either company.³ If the sale does not proceed, ABB will need to decide what to do with the robotics operation itself; the reporting does not specify which choice it will make.³

SoftBank shares fell in Tokyo on Thursday, but the reports gave different approximate sizes for the move: one put the decline around 7%, while others put it at about 5%.² Those figures are competing reported estimates, not a single exact decline that can be reconciled from the available information.² Another account linked the share weakness not only to the blocked acquisition but also to a drop in Arm and a wider selloff in stocks associated with artificial intelligence.³ The share-price reports therefore describe a market reaction in which more than one factor was cited, without establishing how much of the movement came from each one.²³

The robotics proposal is not the only SoftBank initiative described in the reporting: SoftBank and US aerospace company Sceye signed a five-year master service agreement for a high-altitude platform station, or HAPS, effort in Japan.⁴ Under that agreement, Sceye is to make, launch and operate at least 40 HAPS airships over the five-year term.⁴ These details concern a separate project and do not indicate that the airship agreement changes the status of the ABB acquisition.²⁴ They show another activity associated with SoftBank, while the reported Chinese block remains specific to the proposed purchase of ABB’s robotics business.²⁴

SoftBank also announced plans to exhibit at MWC27 Barcelona as an AI platformer, in what was described as its first appearance at the event.⁵ The event is scheduled for March 1–4, 2027, in Barcelona, Spain, after the mid-to-late 2026 period originally planned for the ABB deal’s completion.³⁵ Separately, SoftBank said it had fully restored distribution of emergency alert emails on October 26, including disaster and evacuation notices from national and local authorities, beginning at 11:17 p.m. that day.⁶ These event and alert updates provide wider context about SoftBank’s reported activities, but neither account states that they caused or resolved the regulatory obstacle facing the robotics transaction.²⁵⁶