The Japanese conglomerate, SoftBank Group, led by Masayoshi Son, will reportedly buy ABB’s Robotics division for $5.375 billion, marking its boldest move yet to merge AI with industrial automation. The deal gives SoftBank control of one of the largest and most established robotics portfolios in the world.
“SoftBank’s next frontier is Physical AI,” said Son, the company’s CEO. “Together with ABB Robotics, we will unite world-class technology and talent under our shared vision to fuse Artificial Super Intelligence and robotics.”
ABB Robotics, with around 7,000 employees, generated $2.3 billion in revenue last year through its robotic arms and automation systems used in manufacturing and logistics. The acquisition is expected to close by mid to late 2026, pending regulatory approvals.
ABB said its machine automation division, which, together with Robotics, will henceforth be part of the process automation business area. It was earlier integrated with robotics & discrete automation business area.
The current president of the robotics & discrete automation business area, Sami Atiya, will also step down by the end of 2026 after supporting the transition, the company noted.
In an exclusive interview with AIM previously, Atiya had talked about the division’s distributed, customer-centric approach rather than creating centralised AI teams or pursuing grand projects. He said, “What our research has done is that we now have a neural network that can recognise the shape of the object that it has not seen before.”
The Chase Gets Serious
SoftBank’s fascination with robots isn’t new.
The company has spent over a decade chasing the idea that machines could think and interact like humans. On June 5, 2014, in collaboration with French robotics company Aldebaran (now SoftBank Robotics), the Japanese giant had launched its most famous creation, Pepper. By June 2015, the Pepper robot was on sale for $1650, and the first batch of 1000 units was sold out in just one minute.
But just seven years after its release, this humanoid robot capable of reading emotions was halted. The company had announced the pause in its production and said it would only make the robot ‘when it is needed’.
It also bought the startup Boston Dynamics in 2017, famous for its dancing robots, before selling it to Hyundai in 2020. This was followed by discussions that the sale of Boston Dynamics was premature and could have yielded them a lot more cash in the future.
Now, SoftBank is taking a different path. Instead of chasing novelty robots for homes and shops, it is entering the industrial side of robotics, where robots already work and profit margins are real. ABB Robotics brings decades of automation expertise and a stable customer base.
It has also reportedly acquired shares of 1X Technologies, a Norwegian humanoid robotics company previously backed by OpenAI and participated in the recent funding round of Oregon-based robotics company, Agility Robotics.
Shift from Novelty to Necessity
This move fits into a bigger shift happening inside SoftBank. After years of software-only investments through the Vision Fund, the company has been quietly building a hardware-based AI ecosystem.
Earlier this year, it invested $500 million in Skild AI, a startup developing core models for robotics. It also formed a joint venture with Alat in Riyadh to build an automated factory hub for industrial robots and took over the distribution of Cheffy, an autonomous cooking robot, in Japan.
Together, these pieces point to a broader play: building robots that learn continuously, share data, and execute complex physical tasks, essentially, AI that can move.
ABB now brings not just technology, but manufacturing credibility and global reach. The division’s headquarters in Michigan and operations across Europe and Asia give SoftBank an instant foothold in industrial markets where demand for automation is surging.
For the company, the sale marks the end of its robotics chapter but the start of a new focus. The Swiss firm plans to redirect resources to its electrification and automation divisions. CEO Morten Wierod said the deal will “create immediate value for shareholders” and strengthen ABB’s long-term strategy.
ABB had once planned to spin off its robotics unit as an independent company, but it seems to have accepted SoftBank’s offer instead. The sale will generate an estimated pre-tax book gain of $2.4 billion, with net proceeds of about $5.3 billion.
Why Does it Matter Now?
There’s a clear reason why SoftBank is bullish about robotics in 2025.
Despite geopolitical and economic headwinds, the global trajectory for automation is firmly upwards. According to the International Federation of Robotics, robot installations are forecast to reach 575,000 units in 2025, with demand set to surpass 700,000 units by 2028. This surge is powered by persistent labour shortages and the push for AI-driven efficiency. Factories are no longer just experimenting with robotic technology, but they’re scaling it extensively.
At the same time, the conversation in tech has shifted from digital AI (tools that write, code, or analyse) to physical AI, where intelligence is embodied in machines. From Tesla’s humanoid project, Optimus, to NVIDIA’s robot simulation platforms, major players are rushing to make AI tangible.
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