SoftBank to acquire ABB’s robotics arm in $5.4 billion deal: All about Masayoshi Son’s latest AI push

Softbank Group agreed to purchase the Swiss Engineering Group ABB’s robot business for $ 5.4 billion, and Japanese investor’s founder and CEO Masayoshi Son took an important step in the robot and artificial intelligence (AI) unification strategy.

This purchase, announced on Wednesday, is an attempt to establish Softbank as a core player in the development of artificial intelligence by CEO Son.

Although Softbank entered into humanoid robots with a pepper robot before it was scaling ten years ago, its latest investments include Berkshire Gray and Autostore, Chatgpt-Macer Openai, a 40 billion dollar financing tour and a 6.5 billion dollar chip design company ampere, and news agency. Reuters notified.

Softbank’s focus on robotics

The agreement means that Japan has abandoned the decision to rotate the industrial automation business that competes with Fanuc and Yaskawa and Germany in the production of Factory Robots of ABB.

The decision is the first major move under the Morten Wierod, ABB CEO, who took part in the Robots Unit last year after sales and falling profitability. The robot section, which employed 7,000 people and sells 2.3 billion dollars or 7% of the total revenues of the ABB last year, saw an operational passage limited to the rest of the company, which focuses on electrification and automation.

In April, ABB announced the decision to return robotics to shareholders, but instead of the SoftBank agreement, it decided to sell it because it immediately provided money. Reuters.

What’s next for ABB?

ABB is expected to close from the middle of 2026 to the end of the purchase and will earn about $ 5.3 billion in cash. Reuters.

“We said that robotics are always a market with a much higher volatility. And what we see over the years when it comes to growth, and margins.” He said. “So, a slightly different market than the rest of the ABB, which focuses on electrification and automation.”

Wierod said that ABB will spend to improve new technology and production capacity in electrification and automation, and also consider the financing of new acquisitions. “We have firepower to make greater purchases, so we don’t except bigger opportunities.”