Most US Robot Startups Still Run on Chinese Parts. One Bangalore Company Doesn't.

US regulators moved last week to block new imports of Chinese-made humanoids on national security grounds, and the rule lands on a US robotics industry that runs on Chinese hardware. Most robotics startups in the country are software-led, capital-rich, and still depend on Chinese motors, gearboxes, and motor controllers, according to a recent WIRED report on the sector.

A humanoid, in industry terms, is a robot shaped like a person and built to work alongside humans in warehouses and factories, lifting bins, sorting parcels, or moving parts. The Federal Communications Commission does not usually police robots. It certifies radio-emitting devices, and under existing rules it can block their import on national-security grounds. The agency's new rule extends that authority to a class of Chinese-built machines that, until now, arrived in the United States as ordinary electronics.

The market those machines feed is moving fast. PitchBook data, cited in the same WIRED report, shows investment in robotics startups hitting record highs this year in both deal count and dollars. Most of that capital has gone to software and artificial intelligence teams, not to companies that design and build their own actuators, gearboxes, and motor controllers. When the supply line narrows, software-only players hit a wall they cannot engineer around in a quarter.

Ati Robotics, founded in 2017 in Bangalore, is one of the few that already cleared that wall. The company started by building motors for self-driving cars before pivoting to industrial robots. Today it makes tuggers and pallet movers, the heavy-material handlers used in large factories and distribution centers. Founder Saurabh Chandra says Ati has several hundred robots in operation and more than 50 customers in total, though the company has not published audited deployment numbers. (WIRED)

Chandra built Ati around India's two-wheeler and three-wheeler electric-vehicle supply chain, whose power profile, between roughly 250 watts and a few kilowatts per motor, is close to what a factory robot needs. R&D sits in Bangalore, assembly is in India, and the bill of materials runs through Indian and other non-Chinese vendors. The same components that move a delivery scooter at 25 miles per hour also move a 500-kilogram pallet across a warehouse floor, and Indian vendors, chasing the world's largest two-wheeler market, already produce them at automotive-grade volumes. Chandra argues that the in-house hardware work, which his original advisers warned against, is what naturally limited Ati's exposure to China in the first place.

The company's first humanoid, designed to move heavy bins in warehouse and factory settings, is scheduled to enter service later this year. That product will compete directly with the Chinese models the FCC has now restricted, and Ati's existing component base puts it in a position few US-headquartered peers can claim.

This is not a clean American win. The FCC's import rule is a policy choice, not a victory lap. It also leaves the United States with a thin roster of companies that actually build the hardware. Most US robotics startups remain software-led and China-dependent in ways their pitch decks do not mention. The next test is whether the industry treats Ati's model as an outlier or as a template. Watch the humanoid launches in the second half of this year; the suppliers behind them will tell the story.