ABB confirmed on November 5 that SoftBank has told it that China's Foreign Investment Security Review Working Mechanism Office has prohibited SoftBank from acquiring the China portion of ABB's robotics business. The deal was announced last October at an enterprise value of $5.375 billion. Under the structure, ABB first spins its robotics unit into a holding company, which SoftBank then acquires in full through a subsidiary.
In its statement, ABB said the two sides are "in close dialogue and are working constructively on the transaction." ABB has not announced the termination of the overall deal, and there is currently no word on how the portion outside China will be handled. As of publication, no public response from SoftBank has been seen.
Antitrust cleared, security review did not
The deal had to clear two hurdles in China. In February this year it passed China's antitrust review, and the market briefly assumed closing was only a matter of time. This time the move came from a different mechanism: foreign investment security review, based on the Measures for the Security Review of Foreign Investment, which took effect in January 2021. The working mechanism office sits within the National Development and Reform Commission. Antitrust review looks at market concentration, while security review looks at whether foreign control creates risks around technology, data and supply chains. One does not substitute for the other.
Beijing has not made the specific grounds for the ban public. Citing sources, the UK's Financial Times reported that regulators were worried that assets and data built up in China could be transferred to Japan and used to train AI models, and that OpenAI, in which SoftBank has invested heavily, was also named. The NDRC also reportedly examined ABB's supply chain in China and asked that part of the manufacturing capacity stay in the country. None of this can be verified for now, and the Chinese side has not responded to outside inquiries.
How much ABB Robotics matters in China
ABB's robotics business has about 7,000 employees worldwide, with its US headquarters and factory in Auburn Hills, Michigan. China is a key market: the Shanghai plant builds robots for Chinese customers, with roughly 90 percent made locally, and employs thousands of people. In the third quarter of 2026, ABB Robotics' China business grew 32 percent.
When SoftBank announced the deal last year, it placed it within its "physical AI" strategy. A large share of an industrial robot's value lies on site: motion trajectories on the production line, process parameters and failure records are exactly the data that robot models most lack for training. According to the reports, that is precisely what Chinese regulators are worried about.
The second case in the same year
This is not the first time this year. In April, China halted Meta's roughly $2 billion acquisition of Manus on national security grounds; Manus was founded by a Chinese team and later moved its headquarters to Singapore. Taken together, the two cases show that in China's approval process for cross-border AI and robotics deals, where data and technology end up now sits on the table alongside price and market share.
The United States is tightening as well. President Trump said the Commerce Department has submitted its Section 232 report on the national security implications of imported robots and industrial machinery, which observers expect could lead to tariffs on foreign-made robots. The Federal Communications Commission has already barred new foreign-made advanced robotic equipment from entering the US market, covering both humanoid and quadruped robots.
For Chinese robotics companies and investors planning cross-border acquisitions, the immediate takeaway is that an antitrust approval does not guarantee a closing. For deals involving industrial data and production lines, security review should be scheduled as a separate hurdle.
Sources: ABB statement, The Robot Report, CocoLoop, Silicon Republic, Financial Times; verified the enterprise value, scope of the ban and name of the reviewing body.