Chinese authorities have blocked the purchase of ABB Robotics for 5.4 billion dollars by Japan's SoftBank due to a threat to national security. One of the key assets of ABB Robotics is considered to be a huge database of real automation scenarios, and apparently the unwillingness to transfer access to these data sets became the reason for blocking the deal by Chinese regulators.

Chinese authorities have blocked the purchase of ABB Robotics for 5.4 billion dollars by Japan's SoftBank due to a threat to national security. One of the key assets of ABB Robotics is considered to be a huge database of real automation scenarios, and apparently the unwillingness to transfer access to these data sets became the reason for blocking the deal by Chinese regulators.