US artificial intelligence and robotics firms have urged lawmakers to take action against Chinese robot manufacturers – singling out Unitree Robotics – citing increased competition and national security risks, in a sign that humanoid robots may emerge as a new battleground in the widening US-China tech rivalry.
China’s speed of advancement in humanoid robots is alarming, and the US government should formulate coordinated policies and strategies to counter Chinese firms’ dominance in the industry, witnesses said at a hearing on Tuesday convened by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Subcommittee of the House Committee on Homeland Security.
The witnesses, including executives from Scale AI and Boston Dynamics, recommended government actions including investigating the national security threat posed by Chinese robot makers, expanding export control measures to cover AI inference chips and potentially banning federal agencies from procuring certain Chinese AI and robotics technologies.
Witness Max Fenkell, global head of policy and government relations at San Francisco-based Scale AI, pointed to Hangzhou-based Unitree Robotics’ performance last month at China’s annual Lunar New Year gala, where its humanoid robots performed martial arts including backflips and leaps from trampolines.
“The video went viral, not because it was impressive, but because of what happened when people compared it to last year, 12 months ago, [when] the same robots could barely shuffle through a dance routine,” Fenkell said.
“This year, they’re doing karate. That is the speed of this competition ... Winning requires a whole-of-government approach,” he said.
Witness Matthew Malchano, vice-president of software at American robot maker Boston Dynamics, also noted that at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Chinese companies displaying humanoid robots appeared to have outnumbered US firms by a factor of five to one.
Witness Rush Doshi, director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in his testimony that in robotics, US industrial policy is “critical to ensure the capability to manufacture robots at scale”, while witness Michael Robbins, president and CEO of the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International, urged Congress to “pass a coordinated national robotics strategy” to address China’s market dominance.
“There’s quite a mix of sort of admiration and fear about China’s industrial policy,” Kyle Chan, a fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at the Washington think tank Brookings, told the SCMP.
Concerns about China’s rise in robotics have been growing in Washington over the past year amid the intense AI race between the US and China.
In a letter addressed to Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr last May, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party urged the administration to examine risks of Chinese robot makers’ alleged support for the People’s Liberation Army.
But major actions against China’s AI and robotics firms from the Trump administration are unlikely in the short term, given its currently stretched bandwidth and that items not immediately relevant to the coming midterm elections could be brushed aside, according to Brookings’ Chan.
“It may move slowly within Congress, and it is true that this is an area where there is more bipartisan support. But at the same time ... I wouldn’t expect major policy changes in the near term,” Chan said. == SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
