Today, the FCC banned the import and sale of new foreign-made advanced robots — humanoids, quadrupeds, and autonomous mobile robots — along with foreign-made connected power inverters, citing "unacceptable risks" to U.S. national security.
This is one of the strongest technology-security actions in modern U.S. history. The message is unambiguous: robotics is a technology America must lead and own — and foreign-subsidized robots will not be allowed to unfairly dominate U.S. robotics as they did solar.
As America's largest AI-native industrial robot manufacturer by units shipped, Standard Bots strongly supports this move. We have advocated for exactly this kind of action in recent sessions with the White House and Congressional testimony.
But there's unfinished business. Today's action expressly exempts fixed industrial robot arms — the exact machines being installed next to American workers on American factory floors, and the exact category foreign manufacturers are racing to dominate. The same logic applies to them: a robot arm is a networked, sensing, actuated system, and its inverters are where electricity and intelligence become motion. If you can't trust the components, you can't trust the robot. This gap should be closed.
Standard Bots designs and builds our own drives — the inverters that convert DC power into precise robotic motion — on our own circuit board line at our flagship facility in Glen Cove, NY. We design virtually all our own parts and assemble every final robot ourselves.
We need to build American robots and put them to work in American factories. This transformative technology can revitalize our manufacturing base and create millions of new jobs. Today's action is a massive step. Closing the industrial-arm gap is the next one.
Let’s keep going.
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