SoftBank ABB Robotics Deal: China Carve-Out Weighed After Block
3 min readThe SoftBank ABB robotics deal is not dead yet. Days after a Chinese security review prohibited the $5.4 billion acquisition, SoftBank Group and Swiss engineering company ABB are weighing a plan to split off the robot maker’s China operations so the rest of the sale can close, according to a Bloomberg report carried by The Japan Times.
Background: a physical AI bet
SoftBank agreed in October 2025 to buy ABB’s entire robotics business, a unit with about 7,000 employees and $2.3 billion in 2024 revenue. The purchase was meant to anchor the Tokyo company’s push into physical AI, the effort to put AI models into machines that work in factories and warehouses. SoftBank already holds stakes in robotics companies including Skild AI and Agile Robots through its Robo HD holding company, Forbes reported.
ABB Robotics builds its machines in China, the United States and Sweden, and China is its largest single market. That made approval in Beijing essential.
What happened to the SoftBank ABB robotics deal
Last week China’s Office of the Working Mechanism for Foreign Investment Security Review prohibited the acquisition of ABB’s robotics business in China, ABB said. Regulators gave no public reason. Several reports have pointed to concern that production and motion data from robots in Chinese factories could be used abroad to train AI models.
ABB said the two companies “are in close dialogue and are working constructively on the transaction.”
The leading option is a carve-out: placing ABB Robotics’ China operations in a separate entity under different ownership. Fallbacks include selling the China business to a third party, which one person told Bloomberg could value it at $2 billion to $3 billion, or reviving ABB’s earlier plan to spin the unit off through a stock listing. Talks are at an early stage and could still collapse.
Why it matters
For SoftBank, the block hits the hardware half of an AI strategy that already leans heavily on OpenAI and the Stargate data center project. Its shares fell about 11% last week during a broad tech selloff and dropped another 4.2% in Tokyo on Monday, even as the Nikkei 225 gained 2.3%, the Associated Press reported.
For ABB, the sale proceeds were earmarked for acquisitions. Citigroup analyst Martin Wilkie estimates the block cuts ABB’s deal-making capacity roughly in half, to about $5 billion.
The wider signal is that industrial robot data is now treated as a strategic asset. Other cross-border robotics deals with a large Chinese footprint may face the same review. A decision on the carve-out is the next thing to watch.