Swiss-Swedish ABB said in a statement on Thursday 5 November that Japan’s SoftBank had informed it of the Chinese ban. The statement said the ban came from the Office of the Working Mechanism for Foreign Investment Security Review. It covers the acquisition of the ABB Robotics business in China. ABB did not give a reason for the ban. The company said ABB and SoftBank are in close dialogue and are working constructively on the transaction.

SoftBank agreed the deal in October 2025. EconoTimes reported that SoftBank said at the time the deal needed regulatory approval in China, the EU and the US. The deal was expected to close in mid-to-late 2026. The FT wrote that the robotics unit was meant to be a central part of SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son’s bet on physical AI, the AI that controls robots and other machines.

FT: Beijing was worried about robotics data moving abroad

The Financial Times reported the same day, citing several unnamed sources, that China would not allow the deal. Swissinfo also published the story. Unlike ABB’s statement, the FT does not limit the ban to the China business. The paper names China’s state planning agency, the NDRC, as the decision-maker.

The FT’s sources said the NDRC feared robotics data would end up abroad as training data for AI models, including OpenAI’s models. SoftBank is a major investor in OpenAI.

The paper reported that the deal cleared China’s competition review in February and then moved to a security review. The review examined ABB’s Chinese supply chains and required some manufacturing to stay in China, the sources said. The authorities had also considered keeping some intellectual property in China. This could have required selling parts of the business to Chinese owners. People close to SoftBank said that in the days before the ban it was unclear in Japan what conditions had formally been set. People close to SoftBank and those briefed on the NDRC’s review still expected approval as recently as last week.

The FT said China is the unit’s biggest market: more than 90 per cent of robots sold to Chinese customers are made in China. ABB employs about 12,700 people in China.

SoftBank weighs whether it can apply again

The FT reported that SoftBank is trying to determine what went wrong and whether it could seek approval again. SoftBank declined to comment to the paper, and the NDRC did not immediately respond. At Thursday’s press conference, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun referred a question from AFP to the competent authorities. Nikkei Asia described the decision as Beijing’s latest intervention in a deal involving key technology.