With Washington's help, humanoid robots can transform ...

Title: AMD AI Conference Image ID: 26204731767605 Article: The Generative Bionics team demonstrates the Gene.01 humanoid robot at the AMD Advancing AI 2026 conference on Thursday, July 23, 2026, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Juliana Yamada)

For the first time in decades, having a manufacturing edge is not dependent on an abundant human labor supply like China has lately enjoyed. With AI and automation, America has a once in a generation window of opportunity to rebuild its manufacturing base, even amid labor shortages due to sustained low unemployment. The idea that we can lead on robotics without “doing” is a delusion. The rapid innovation we see in China’s humanoids is almost completely independent from early U.S. research, and it is only accelerating. At the recent Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Robotics and Automation 2026 conference, almost all the humanoids on display were from China and they dominated the research papers as well.

What can we do?

The policy levers aren’t complicated: tax incentives tied to deployment, not just invention, modernized manufacturing extension programs and interoperability standards set while the market is still shapeable. None of these require massive spending or geopolitical confrontation. Enter humanoid robots: intelligent machines that combine AI, automation, advanced sensors and more into a single adaptable workforce. They can breathe new life into our production lines by taking on dark, dirty and dangerous work so that human workers never have to.

Rebuilding a dominant American manufacturing industry with humanoids is possible, but only if federal policy and regulatory bodies create a comprehensive national development and deployment strategy soon.

U.S. robotics policy was built for a world where the hard part was invention. The U.S. presently funds research generously through the National Science Foundation, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and university partnerships, and this has produced genuinely impressive humanoid robots.