The Robot Report Podcast
00:09:11 · Mike Oitzman
[00:09:11] S1: I mean, yeah, it's... Think it's a question for any country or or any organization in this world of physical AI is, you know, how... Is your information being used? And in many cases, we know that that, you know, a deployed fleet of robots, especially in a robots as a service situation, you know, every placement, every acquisition, every move, that information can come back and help make the entire fleet better. Right? There's that. And we know we've talked about security with so many cameras on so many devices. So I think you got something there and it comes down to how much of ABB's robot businesses in China. In 2025, according to the numbers, ABB Robotics booked $925,000,000 in orders from China, up from almost 700,000,000 in 2024. And I guess in q three, their business in China alone rose 32% according to the article. So, you know, the business is there is growing. It seems that, you know, ABB products are rock solid in industrial use cases, so that's great for ABB. And they still build a lot of robots in its Shanghai factory. That was the other requirement, right, is that domestic manufacturing. So they do have factories there. And so, again, we we we don't... We can't uncover all of the the political implement... Implications here, but there... There's something else, you know, under the surface going on here.
00:10:47 · Steve Crowe, Mike Oitzman
[00:10:47] S0: Yeah. And and it doesn't mean that this deal is dead. Right? There's there's other things like... And I'm sure they're scrambling and going back to the negotiating table to try to figure this out. I think everybody probably, you know, from the ABB and SoftBank side obviously want this to happen. ABB at one point did have a plan to just spin off the robotics division, if you remember that. They were just going to spin it off into a standalone business unit. And then the SoftBank opportunity presented itself. But you you you think robotics is becoming a new political battleground? It certainly seems that way. [00:11:19] S1: Well, yes. I mean, just what... Even within the US government, right, in the last year, trying to block the import of Chinese robots. And so, unfortunately, yeah, maybe we're caught up in the middle of all of this. Sort of the, I don't know, what's a bad analogy, kids in a divorce, right? Where parents are fighting and where, as an industry, caught up between all of this. So I think that's unfortunate. In April, China prevented Meta from acquiring the AI startup Manus for $2,000,000,000 Manus was founded in China, but it had relocated to Singapore. And as we learned last week, Meta's now working with Chinese humanoid maker, Fourier, on a new meta specific humanoid robot in their robotics in in, I don't know, physical AI division. So, you know, so many things happen at so many levels, Steve. We live in an international world, and it's it's really hard and sort of sucks when these other sort of, overlying things, you know, impact business.
00:12:30 · Steve Crowe
[00:12:30] S0: Yeah. I mean, I I think about... I I always, in in these situations, look on the individual level. And, you know, people who have been at ABB in the robotics group for years and have built that and they're super successful and probably were positioned to make a lot of money from this deal, right, and change their lives and change their future and maybe even future generations of their families. It's a big moment for those folks. Right? And to see something like this potentially stop that from happening. I I don't know how they, again, on an individual level deal with this kind of stuff. I know how I would have a hard time, you know, mentally dealing with that kind of stuff. So that's where my mind immediately goes is to the Marc Zegers of the world. Right? Like someone who's been there for so long leading this stuff and to see just political BS potentially get in in in the way of of making something like this happen, kind of stinks. But again, yeah, you mentioned some of The US stuff, right, where the the section two thirty two report last week where The US Government says robotic imports are potentially a national security problem. But then again, how are we actually rebuilding The US robotics ecosystem and encouraging and supporting and promoting the building of more domestic robotics companies that are scaling products at a significant level rather than just, hey, ABB. Yes, you have US manufacturing as well. Can you scale that up? I mean, they're not a US company. So it's... Have the FCC already banning new foreign made advanced robotics devices as well, including mobile robots and humanoids and quadrupeds. Again, they're also citing supply chain vulnerabilities. So it's it's all it's all just craziness. And and, you know, it's unfortunate that we can't all just get along.
00:14:20 · Mike Oitzman
[00:14:20] S1: Yeah. Well, you know, and again, we... This whole discussion about strategic assets, you know, robotics is a strategic asset. And, I mean, let's not forget the other news that happened in the world in the last week, which is, you know, these industrial refrigerators getting hacked. Right? Being turned off and spoiling food, that kind of thing just is sort of malfeasance, if you want to call it, hackers doing that. But at the same time, you know, when robotics and automation is a core part of building, you know, your infrastructure within the country, I think, again, we as an industry have to take security as a paramount concern in terms of these connected devices. I think the last thing any of these countries want is someone being able to remotely hack the system and and turn off the switch and turn off production on, you know, critical infrastructure. And and, again, this... We... It's worth talking about as an industry, and we gotta keep keep on on this story because I think this is just one symptom of, you know, the new world in the next decade.
00:15:27 · Steve Crowe, Mike Oitzman
[00:15:27] S0: Yeah. And I I think do these robotics companies have to think about regulatory risk as right when they're approaching certain types of deals or strategic moves? Right? And how are those relationships with other countries? How will that impact these moves and their business decisions and all the rest of it. Right? So we've reached out to ABB. We've reached out to SoftBank to try to learn more about this. Obviously, nobody wants to really talk about this, at the moment. We'll continue to follow it and dig in and see what we can learn. You know, where my mind also went on this is that we we reported a few weeks ago that SoftBank has agreed to acquire the Robotics and AI Institute, right, from [00:16:09] S1: Hyundai. Yeah.
00:16:09 · Mike Oitzman, Steve Crowe
[00:16:09] S1: Hyundai. Yeah. [00:16:09] S0: Right? So that's the Boston Dynamics spin off led by Marc Raibert and Al Rizzi and and a bunch of other amazing folks. Again, SoftBank, Japanese company, Robotics and AI Institute, a US company based in Massachusetts. But is there a potential impact on that deal happening? Right? You know, if if this deal for ABB doesn't go through, do they rethink a lot of the moves that SoftBank has been trying to make? I don't know. Or does it impact the price that it would cost to acquire the RAI Institute? From my understanding, I reached out about this yesterday to some folks, and they say that RAI deal is still being reviewed. So it sounds like it's still happening. But, you know, if there's collateral damage as well on something like this, it's it's very possible. So a lot of potential things in dominoes could be, falling from this. So again, we'll we'll continue to follow all of it as as as best we can. Moving on, we we published, Mike, the startup radar 2026 this week. Features 60 robotic startups working on a range of applications, a variety of robots, whether it's for ag, defense, health care, manufacturing, based all over the world. They've raised millions of dollars. Again, this is the second time that we've published this. So what what... What's your take? What what do you think people should know about the startup radar?