Bipartisan group on robotics warns of widening US distribution gap with China

The National Security Commission on Robotics for Advanced Manufacturing, a bipartisan initiative of the Special Competitive Studies Project, released its 90-page preliminary report on October 13, 2026. The commission’s central finding is that the United States is a leader in the technologies that form the brain of modern robotics, including artificial intelligence, computer vision, autonomy, and software, but lacks the scale needed to deploy robots, produce robotic systems, and produce critical components domestically.

The report addresses physical AI, the term used for artificial intelligence embedded in machines that perceive and act in the real world, and argues that leadership will be determined by productive implementation and resilient manufacturing capability rather than model capability alone. The commission frames the document as a diagnosis rather than a prescription; a final report with recommendations is expected in March 2027.

A bipartisan commission and its method

The commission is co-chaired by Senator Ted Budd, Republican of North Carolina, Senator Elissa Slotkin, Democrat of Michigan, and SCSP President and CEO Ylli Bajraktari. Members include executives from Playground Global, Path Robotics, FANUC America, Intrinsic, NVIDIA, Andreessen Horowitz, Boston Dynamics, AMD, General Motors and Mytra; the director of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory; and academics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Michigan. Ayanna Howard stepped down as commissioner in June 2026 to focus on her new role as president of Spelman College.

The analysis covers robotic systems used in advanced manufacturing, from stationary industrial robots and collaborative systems to autonomous mobile robots and emerging general purpose platforms. The findings are based on publicly available data, academic and industry research, committee deliberations, briefings and site visits, and engagements with manufacturers, workers, technology developers, systems integrators, researchers, educators and investors. The Commission calls them preliminary because robotics technologies, markets, and deployment models are evolving rapidly and the available evidence remains uneven in different areas.

The distribution gap behind the discovery

According to data from the International Robotics Federation cited in the report, Chinese factories installed about 354,200 industrial robots in 2025, 59% of the world’s installations, compared to about 38,400 in the United States. As of the end of 2024, Chinese companies had more than two million industrial robots operating in factories, which the report describes as more than five times the US fleet of 393,700; this action represented 8.3% of the global total through 2024.

The United States ranked eighth globally in robot density in 2024, with about 307 robots per 10,000 manufacturing employees, a fraction of the Republic of Korea’s 1,220 but higher than China’s density. Annual installations in the US peaked at 40,000 units in 2022, or 7% of the global total, and the US share fell to 6.3% in 2024; preliminary data indicates a rebound to 38,400 units in 2025. Most industrial robots installed in the United States were imported, while Chinese suppliers accounted for 55% of installations in the domestic market in 2025.

According to US Census Bureau data cited in the report, only 12.1% of US manufacturing plants reported using robots in 2021. China’s Made in China 2025 initiative, launched in 2015, set a goal of 1.8 million operational robots by 2025, and the report says China achieved that early, in 2024, when its operational stock surpassed two million. The Commission cautions that these figures measure industrial robots and do not capture newer systems such as mobile robots and humanoids, and that comparable deployment data is needed for such systems before drawing broader conclusions about the physical leadership of AI.

Ten results on four pillars

The report organizes ten preliminary findings around four pillars: the national framework, the talent pipeline, large-scale adoption and the innovation ecosystem. At the center lies what the commission calls a supply-demand paradox: Manufacturers wait for robotic systems to become cheaper, more adaptable and better tested, while robotics companies cannot lower costs or improve performance without the deployment volume provided by manufacturers. The Commission describes the first-mover problem as a market failure that is unlikely to go away on its own.

In the national picture, the report finds that federal robotics initiatives are spread across at least four executive departments and numerous agencies, with no single institution accountable for results on a national scale. The National Robotics Initiative coordinated more than $250 million across more than 300 projects before the National Science Foundation ended the program in 2022.

As for the talent pipeline, a 2024 study by Deloitte and Manufacturing Institute, cited in the report, projects that the sector will need to fill approximately 3.8 million jobs by 2033, with up to 1.9 million potentially unfilled. The commission believes that the employment effects of robotics are ambiguous and not predetermined, shaped simultaneously by job displacement, job transformation, and new job creation. Apprentices will make up just 0.3% of the U.S. workforce in 2025, the report finds, and traditional multi-year apprenticeship programs struggle to keep up with rapid technological changes.

According to the commission’s release, small and medium-sized manufacturers, approximately 95% of U.S. manufacturing companies, face capital constraints, knowledge gaps, narrow return-on-investment metrics, and uncertainty about cybersecurity and liability. The report adds that AI-assisted programming, low-code tools and collaborative robots are expanding the feasibility of automation beyond rigid, high-volume manufacturing, while safety frameworks and performance standards struggle to keep pace.

As for the innovation ecosystem, the report describes a commercialization death valley for U.S. robotics startups, whose capital-intensive hardware requirements poorly align with traditional venture capital timelines. According to the report, China accounted for about 60% of global rare earth mine production, 91% of refined production, and 94% of sintered permanent magnet production in 2024, which describes such magnets as necessary components in most motors and actuators used in industrial robots; it adds that in 2025 China implemented export restrictions that disrupted industrial supply chains in the United States and its allies. Operational data produced by US companies is locked within individual companies, in incompatible formats and behind contracts that prevent it from being shared.

The findings also cite security risks: a 2026 national security decision that added foreign-made advanced robotic devices to the Federal Communications Commission’s Covered List; a vulnerability discovered in early 2026 in a Chinese company’s robot vacuum cleaners that exposed real-time camera feeds, microphone audio, and floor plans from nearly 7,000 devices in 24 countries; and a pre-installed backdoor found in 2025 in a quadrupedal robot made by Unitree Robotics that allowed surveillance of customers around the world and unauthorized remote control of the robots.

A national mission and the final report of March 2027

The report concludes that the United States needs a national mission organized around deployment, mobilizing private sector dynamism, research strength, capital markets, regional manufacturing ecosystems, and skilled workers. Such a mission would not copy the Chinese state-directed model or require domestic production of every component; the strategic question, the commission writes, is where concentrated or adversary-related dependencies create vulnerabilities and where domestic or allied capability is essential.

“A software advantage that cannot be embodied, produced, distributed, and sustained at scale will not be sufficient to ensure American industrial leadership,” Bajraktari wrote in an opening letter to the report.

In the statement announcing the report, Budd called the report an important step toward leveraging physical AI, automation and robotics, and said that reindustrializing the United States is essential to strengthening critical supply chains, ensuring leadership in emerging technologies and keeping pace with China. Slotkin said the country must restore and expand critical manufacturing processes and support vulnerable supply chains without harming American workers.

The Commission says that such a mission should be judged by national results rather than the number of programs created or dollars announced, citing measures including the breadth of adoption among smaller industries, regions and manufacturers; the time and costs required to move from evaluation to production operation; the share of pilots who advance to repeat deployments; and national and related capacity in critical components. The final report, expected in March 2027, will propose recommendations for federal, state and regional leaders; manufacturers and technology companies; educators and workforce development organizations; workers and workers’ representatives; investors; and research institutes.