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China Blocks SoftBank's $5.4 Billion ABB Robotics Takeover Over Fears Robot Data Will Train OpenAI's Models, FT Reports

Business · By: AIReport Admin · 13 hours ago · 👁 21
China Blocks SoftBank's $5.4 Billion ABB Robotics Takeover Over Fears Robot Data Will Train OpenAI's Models, FT Reports

China's NDRC has told SoftBank it will not approve its $5.4 billion acquisition of ABB's robotics division, the Financial Times reports, citing people familiar with the matter. China is ABB's largest robotics market at about 30 percent of the business, and regulators are concerned robot data could flow overseas to train AI models, including OpenAI's. SoftBank had expected clearance as recently as last week. Neither company has commented.

Chinese authorities have told SoftBank that they will not approve its $5.4 billion acquisition of ABB's robotics division, the Financial Times reported on November 4, citing multiple people familiar with the decision. China's National Development and Reform Commission, the agency that reviews such transactions, is the one delivering the block, according to the report.

The timeline makes the decision sting. SoftBank agreed to buy the Swiss engineering group's robotics business in October 2025, at the height of Masayoshi Son's campaign to position the group at the center of the AI buildout, and as recently as last week the company expected the deal to clear review, the FT reported. Reuters said it could not independently verify the FT's account, and SoftBank, ABB and the NDRC did not respond to requests for comment.

China is ABB's largest robotics market, accounting for roughly 30 percent of the division's business, which gives Beijing both the leverage and the motivation to weigh in.

The stated concern goes beyond market concentration. The FT reports that the NDRC's worry centers on robotics data flowing out of China and being used to train AI models, including those developed by OpenAI, in which SoftBank is one of the largest investors. Industrial robots embedded in Chinese factories generate exactly the kind of physical-world interaction data that next-generation robotics models need, and regulators increasingly treat that data as a strategic asset that should not leave the country.

Investors had already priced in some nerves: SoftBank shares fell about 5 percent in Tokyo trading on the day before the FT report landed, and moved little on the news itself.

The block lands in a broader pattern of tightening reviews of foreign acquisitions involving Chinese assets and data, and it complicates ABB's plan to hand its robotics unit to a buyer with deep AI ambitions. For SoftBank, the decision is a reminder that the data its AI thesis depends on is increasingly gated by national regulators, and for the robotics industry at large it sets a precedent: the datasets robots generate on factory floors are now geopolitically sensitive in the same way advanced chips are.

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