{"id":60653,"date":"2025-10-08T06:54:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T06:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/60653\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T06:54:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T06:54:07","slug":"softbank-to-buy-abb-robotics-unit-for-5-4-billion-in-ai-push","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/60653\/","title":{"rendered":"SoftBank to buy ABB robotics unit for $5.4 billion in AI push"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An ABB robot on a production line at the Sony UK Technology Centre in Pencoed, UK.<\/p>\n<p>Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/9984.T-JP\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">SoftBank Group<\/a> on Monday said it had agreed to buy the robotics division of Swiss engineering firm ABB for $5.4 billion, as the Japanese giant looks to bolster its artificial intelligence plays.<\/p>\n<p>The deal, which is subject to regulatory approval globally, means <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/quotes\/ABB.N-CH\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ABB<\/a> will no longer look to spin off its robotics business as a separately listed company.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;SoftBank&#8217;s next frontier is Physical AI. Together with ABB Robotics, we will unite world-class technology and talent under our shared vision to fuse Artificial Super Intelligence and robotics \u2014 driving a groundbreaking evolution that will propel humanity forward,&#8221; Masayoshi Son, founder of SoftBank, said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Artificial Super Intelligence, or ASI, is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2024\/06\/21\/softbank-ceo-predicts-ai-that-is-10000-times-smarter-than-humans-.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Son&#8217;s idea of AI<\/a> that is 10,000 times smarter than humans.<\/p>\n<p>Son has looked to position <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/08\/11\/softbank-founder-son-makes-his-biggest-bet-by-staking-the-future-on-ai.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">SoftBank at the center of the potential AI boom<\/a> through investments and acquisitions in different areas of technology. SoftBank owns chip designer Arm, for example, and has a major stake in OpenAI.<\/p>\n<p>SoftBank already has some robot-related investments, including AutoStore Holdings and Agile Robots.<\/p>\n<p>Morten Wierod, who became CEO of ABB in August 2024, has pushed the spin-off of the company&#8217;s robotics unit as a strategic move.<\/p>\n<p>ABB said in a statement that the sale &#8220;will create immediate value to ABB shareholders.&#8221; The company said it will use the proceeds from the transaction &#8220;in line with its well-established capital allocation principles.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This is a breaking news story. Please check back for more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An ABB robot on a production line at the Sony UK Technology Centre in Pencoed, UK. Bloomberg |&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[44798,345,343,344,220,354,357,85,46,16356,16358,125],"class_list":{"0":"post-60653","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-abb-ltd","9":"tag-ai","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-breaking-news","13":"tag-breaking-news-technology","14":"tag-business-news","15":"tag-il","16":"tag-israel","17":"tag-masayoshi-son","18":"tag-softbank-group-corp","19":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}