China’s state planner has told Japanese investor SoftBank it will not allow the US$5.4 billion acquisition of the robotics segment of engineering group ABB to go ahead, the Swiss firm said on Thursday.
The case marks the second major deal blocked by China this year after Meta Platforms was ordered to unwind its US$2 billion-plus acquisition of artificial intelligence start-up Manus. The news comes as Beijing tightens scrutiny of foreign investment in domestic start-ups that are developing frontier technologies.
It also restrains SoftBank’s ambitions in the robotics industry, which CEO Masayoshi Son has billed as a core component of its AI investment strategy.
