Humanoid Robots Need to Avoid Chinese Domination

Several US makers of humanoid robots designed for general purposes are testing them in real-life settings, improving them and preparing for mass production. As this technology progresses and begins to populate factory and warehouse floors, authorities should make sure the US doesn’t make the same mistakes it did with the drone industry.

Producers of these machines, such as Agility Robotics, Apptronik and Tesla Inc., are at about the same stage as drones were about 15 years ago. Drones were being built and tested, and people were trying to figure out the use cases, when the industry was blown away in 2013 by the Phantom 2 Vision drone made by a Chinese company known as DJI. This drone came with a built-in camera, a ready-to-fly ease of operation, and a low price.

While DJI’s drones were sweeping the US market, it wasn’t yet clear that they would become essential on the battlefield, and the alarm had not sounded over China’s aggressive military buildup. These concerns became crystalized after Russia invaded Ukraine and China backed Russia; a pandemic originating in China swept the globe, exposing US dependence on Chinese goods; a Chinese spy balloon that drifted across the US symbolized a nation emboldened by a massive military expansion; and a tariff war tipped China’s hand that it would use the supply chain as a cudgel in areas such as rare-earth products.