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🚨 BREAKING: China has blocked SoftBank’s $5.4 billion acquisition of ABB’s robotics division! 🇨🇳 China’s National Development and Reform Commission told SoftBank the acquisition will not be permitted. ABB shares fell 2.7%. SoftBank shares ended the day down 6.8%. The stated concerns: → Potential transfer of sensitive robotics data overseas → SoftBank’s close ties with Western companies, including OpenAI, in which it is a major investor → Discomfort with a Japanese company gaining control of the technology amid strained China-Japan relations China is ABB Robotics largest robotics market, accounting for roughly 30% of its entire robotics business. ABB operates around 30 local companies in China with 15,000 employees across 130 cities. Its global robotics headquarters is in Shanghai. Beijing has effectively used that leverage as a veto. This is the second major deal China has blocked this year. Earlier in 2026, Meta was ordered to unwind its $2B+ acquisition of AI startup Manus. China is tightening scrutiny of any foreign investment touching frontier technology, robotics and AI data. For Masayoshi Son, this is a significant blow. Robotics has been identified as the core pillar of SoftBank’s AI investment strategy. The ABB deal was supposed to give SoftBank industrial scale, decades of manufacturing relationships, a global customer base and the hardware foundation to pair with RAI’s research capabilities. That vision is now in serious doubt. ABB and SoftBank say they are in dialogue and working on a solution. But the NDRC prohibition is not a negotiating position, it’s a decision. Robotics is now officially a geopolitical asset class. The tech war just came for the factory floor. 👀 🔗 Read more here: reuters.com/business/media-t… ~~ ♻️ Join the weekly robotics newsletter, and never miss any news → ziegler.substack.com