The FCC added foreign-made humanoid and quadruped robots to its Covered List on July 29, blocking new imports. China, which holds roughly 85% of the global humanoid market, threatened countermeasures the next day.
Read the full story: FCC Bans Chinese Humanoid Robots, Beijing Threatens Payback →
Transcript
The FCC just put humanoid robots, robot dogs and power inverters on its Covered List. That blocks new equipment authorizations, and without one you cannot legally import a device that emits radio. Almost every humanoid has wifi, so almost every humanoid is now blocked. China's commerce ministry threatened countermeasures the next day. Everyone is quoting the eighty five percent market share number. Here's the number that actually decides whether this works. Fifteen thousand. That's every humanoid robot shipped worldwide in all of last year. Unitree shipped five thousand of them. Agibot shipped five thousand. Tesla and Figure, the two American programs with the most money and the most attention, shipped a few hundred each. So this is a ban on a market that has barely started. It costs American buyers almost nothing today because almost nobody owns one. The wager is that domestic makers reach volume before the category matures. And the awkward part sitting in the middle of it: Nvidia's own humanoid reference design was built on a Unitree chassis.