Boston Dynamics Joins U.S. Private 'Think Tank' to Shape Robotics Strategy - 아시아경제

Eric Schmidt is building a policy coalition around American robotics, and the participants are not subtle about why.

Boston Dynamics announced Wednesday it has joined the Special Competitive Studies Project's new National Security Commission on Robotics for Advanced Manufacturing — a bipartisan commission co-chaired by Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) and Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), alongside SCSP president Ylli Bajraktari. The commission's mandate: produce a national strategy to make U.S. robotics and advanced manufacturing a durable national security asset, with recommendations due in March 2027.

"We are at a hinge point in history where Physical AI — powered by robotics — will determine the next era of geopolitical and economic power," Bajraktari said in the announcement. Sen. Budd was more direct: "If the U.S. fails to deploy next-generation technologies, we risk our national and economic security falling behind."

The commission's four workstreams make the scope clear: a national framework to synchronize public and private robotics investment; a domestic talent pipeline for robotics engineers and technicians; strategic benchmarks for robotic integration across supply chains; and policies to secure U.S. leadership in robotics hardware, software, and the underlying supply chain. The last point — the supply chain — is where China enters the picture explicitly. The commission's framing treats the robotics race as a successor to the semiconductor race, with the same underlying concern about concentrated manufacturing capacity and foreign dependency.

The commissioner roster reflects what the policy conversation around American robotics actually looks like. Brendan Schulman, Boston Dynamics' Vice President of Policy and Government Relations, joins Rev Lebaredian of Nvidia, Keith Strier of AMD, Anne Neuberger of a16z, and representatives from FANUC America, General Motors, Dr. Chinedum Okwudire of the University of Michigan, and MIT's Industrial Performance Center. The group spans chip designers, robot makers, automakers, and academic institutions — a deliberate configuration to bridge lab innovation and shop-floor deployment.

For Boston Dynamics, the seat at the table is the story. The company unveiled its Atlas humanoid robot at CES 2026 and has been positioning itself as a bellwether for American industrial robotics. Its inclusion in the commission — rather than a company like Figure AI, 1X, or Tesla — reflects its existing government relationships and its status as a proven platform. Brendan Schulman attended the Commerce Department's June 10 meeting with key officials from Boston Dynamics, Nvidia, OpenAI, and Tesla on federal robotics support.

The policy timeline is real. The commission has from now until March 2027 to produce recommendations that will shape federal procurement, export controls, workforce investment, and supply chain standards for robotics. The companies at the table will help write that playbook.