The US robotics supply chain sits at the centre of a gathering policy debate: American firms can build the software intelligence that animates robots, but the motors, sensors, batteries and chassis that give them physical form flow predominantly from China, and the gap may be widening. That tension is now drawing in Congress, regulators and researchers in equal measure.
Why the US Robotics Supply Chain Leans on Chinese Hardware
Sergey Levine, cofounder and researcher at Physical Intelligence, a San Francisco-based startup, made the point plainly in an episode of The Peterman Pod published on Monday. “Availability of reliable low-cost hardware is a big deal. And right now, hardware used for robotics research, a lot of that does come from China,” Levine said. “It’s good. It’s relatively inexpensive. It’s of high quality and meets the standards that people generally need. But it’d be awfully nice to be able to source all of that domestically as well. I don’t think there’s anything impossible about that.”
Physical Intelligence is one of many Silicon Valley startups concentrating on robotics software. The challenge Levine describes is not unique to his firm: across the industry, sourcing the physical components needed to build and test robots (motors, chassis, batteries, sensors) has become a structural constraint. Companies frequently turn to Chinese suppliers to fill those gaps, because domestic alternatives are either unavailable or prohibitively costly.
Evan Beard, CEO of Standard Bots, put a number on the disparity at a congressional hearing in April. “The United States is no longer competitive in manufacturing, and we’re falling further behind every day. Any company that builds hardware can tell you that if you source from China instead of making it here, it’s generally 5 to 10 times cheaper,” he said.
A June analysis from McKinsey added granular detail to that picture, finding that China holds a “significant share of capacity” for robotics parts, including 90% of permanent-magnet processing. The report attributed China’s position in part to its electric vehicle ecosystem, which shares several components with robotics hardware.
The FCC Ban and the US Robotics Supply Chain Dilemma
Washington has already moved on the demand side. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) added all foreign-produced advanced robotic devices to its Covered List on 28 July 2026 under public notice DA-26-786, according to Open Droids. The measure effectively blocks new models of advanced robotic devices produced outside the US from entering the American market on national security grounds. The scope is broad: the ban covers autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), humanoid robots, quadrupeds, bipeds and wheeled robots weighing more than 4.4 lbs that carry network connectivity.
There is one material carve-out. According to NPR, the ban does not apply to existing models previously authorised for sale or import into the US. New entrants, however, face a closed door.
US manufacturers welcomed the restriction, but the reaction among researchers and startups has been more equivocal. Some told Business Insider’s robotics reporter, Rya Jetha, that the ban cuts off access to affordable hardware at precisely the moment when the industry needs to scale rapidly. The policy tension is acute: restricting Chinese-made robots for security reasons simultaneously removes a significant source of the low-cost components that American robotics firms depend on.
The scale of China’s position in the global market underlines the stakes. CBS News reported that China holds an estimated 85% share of the global humanoid robot market, a dominance built on a deeply integrated manufacturing base that covers not just finished robots but the sub-components that go into them.
Levine’s argument on The Peterman Pod is that the software-hardware divide cannot be bridged by focusing on one side alone. “I think that it’s important to sort of fully embrace that this is a holistic thing and not something where we can do just one piece of it and outsource everything else,” he said. He also noted that “different industries that contribute to robotics need to individually be very healthy”, a framing that points to electric vehicles, defence electronics and semiconductor manufacturing as adjacent sectors whose vitality shapes what robotics firms can actually build.
The FCC’s Covered List designation, combined with the congressional testimony from executives such as Beard, suggests the US robotics supply chain question has moved firmly from industry concern to active policy agenda. Whether domestic hardware capacity can be built quickly enough to meet that demand is the open question now before lawmakers.