Robo Inc. Targets US Humanoid Production as China Controls Nearly All Key Parts
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Aug 13
Robo Inc. Targets US Humanoid Production as China Controls Nearly All Key Parts
1 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Aug 13
Summary
Long Island-based Robo Inc., founded by 30-year-old Teddy Haggerty, is trying to build humanoid robots in the United States despite China’s commanding lead in cost, scale and manufacturing experience.
Since 2022, Haggerty has served as North American distributor for Unitree Robotics, giving him a close view of how far Chinese producers have advanced in a sector Beijing has treated as a strategic priority.
Robo plans to source components globally and make some parts in-house, but Haggerty says a robot entirely free of Chinese components is not practical because China dominates nearly the whole supply chain.
The effort underscores a broader US ambition to create domestic humanoid-robot capacity, even as American manufacturers remain well behind Chinese rivals in production depth.
Will abandoning the all-in-one design for a hardware-agnostic approach finally allow US robotics to compete with massive overseas manufacturing scale?
As cheap humanoids flood the market, is the real industry battleground shifting from hardware manufacturing to software security and local integration?