China's Humanoid Edge Is Hardware, Not AI

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In the global race for dominance in humanoid robotics, the deciding factor may have less to do with AI and more to do with the seemingly mundane hardware used to make robots move.

That’s the conclusion of a new study released on Wednesday from San Francisco-based robotics AI vendor OpenMind, which assessed the infrastructure required to build and deploy advanced embodied AI across 58 countries and 22 metropolitan clusters.

The study was partially motivated by the FCC’s recent barring of foreign-made robotics components from the U.S., a move that was quickly perceived as a slight against Chinese manufacturers and a bid to bolster domestic supply chains. That leaves open the question of whether the U.S. can build its own robotics ecosystem without China, and what it would take. OpenMind's study attempts to answer it.

OpenMind CEO Jan Liphardt argued China has already won the parts of that race that are hardest to reverse, a lead built on decades of manufacturing capability and investment that has let the country lock in its supply chains ahead of the rest of the robotics industry.

“Physical AI is not gate-limited by AI. It's gate-limited by all the apparently simple stuff, such as the actuators, the magnets, the chips, the arms and the legs,” Liphardt told AI Business. “And it turns out that China is ahead of everyone else, not just by a tiny little bit, but significantly ahead.”

China scored 82.9 on OpenMind's Physical AI Readiness Index, compared with 69.6 for Japan and 69.0 for the US. The researchers attribute the gap primarily to China's development in energy, robotics and materials, as well as years of sustained national investment.

China’s Ecosystem Advantage

The report argues that the central constraint on humanoid production is mechanical. Actuators account for 40% to 60% of a humanoid's bill of materials. Without Chinese suppliers, the report says humanoid costs more than double, from $46,000 to $131,000.

Can the U.S. Keep Up?