Boston Dynamics has already been making its Atlas humanoid robot, along with its four-legged Spot robot and wheeled Stretch robot, at its main facility in Waltham, Massachusetts. The US robotics company is also planning to massively scale up manufacturing of the Atlas robot under South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Company, which gained full ownership of Boston Dynamics in July 2026.
“This is one of the strongest technology-security actions in modern US history,” wrote Evan Beard, CEO of Standard Bots, in a LinkedIn post. “The message is unambiguous: robotics is a technology America must lead and own—and foreign-subsidized robots will not be allowed to unfairly dominate US robotics as they did solar.”
Similar praise came from Rush Doshi, director of the Initiative on China Strategy at the Council on Foreign Relations, who, in a social media post, described the FCC decision as “one of the most significant actions taken so far in support of the US robotics ecosystem.”
However, several robotics researchers and analysts interviewed by The Robot Report expressed skepticism about any potential boost to US competitiveness in robotics. Some even warned that the ban could prove counterproductive for US robotics efforts to develop humanoid robots.
“In the near term, the measure could slow US physical AI innovation by cutting startups and researchers off from future low-cost Chinese platforms before comparable Western alternatives exist,” said Georg Stieler, a global robotics advisor and managing director for Asia at Stieler Technology & Market Advisory, in an interview with The Robot Report.
US domestic production of robots lags behind China in terms of mass manufacturing at lower cost, said Rueben Scriven, a senior analyst at Interact Analysis. “This announcement is more likely to inhibit the US humanoid robotics industry, as the presence of low-cost Chinese humanoid robots has been helping educate the US market through promotional and entertainment use cases—an effect this policy risks undermining,” Scriven told The Robot Report.
The outcome of previous FCC bans is also not necessarily encouraging. US government restrictions on drones made by Chinese companies such as DJI have failed to create a “competitive mass-market consumer-drone producer” based in the United States, Stieler pointed out. The Verge has also reported that newly created companies have popped up to sidestep the US ban on foreign drones by selling “barely disguised versions of DJI technology.”
This story was updated on July 30, 2026 to include China’s Ministry of Commerce response to the FCC decision.
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/07/who-wins-and-who-loses-after-us-bans-foreign-robots/
