Chef Robotics is looking for non-Chinese suppliers as U.S. restrictions and tariffs threaten its access to components used in its robot arms. The company has found that U.S.-made alternatives can cost too much or aren’t available in sufficient quantities. Companies, universities and consumers bear the cost of shifting production through higher prices and longer waits.
Who Pays for the Shift
Rajat Bhageria founded the San Francisco robotics startup seven years before the article. He said investors and customers now ask why the company still uses foreign-made parts. “For a while of course, it was like, ‘Hey, let’s find the best components, and let’s find them at the cheapest price,’” he said.
Chef Robotics completes final assembly in the United States, Bhageria said, but suppliers make all the machine utensil components attached to its robot arms in China. He tried to move production last year as President Donald Trump raised tariffs on Chinese imports. U.S. production of the plastic grabbers proved prohibitively expensive, and many suppliers outside China couldn’t fill the order.
“It’s actually been a much harder process than we had initially hoped,” Bhageria said. “We will even talk to some really good machine shops in the US and they’re like, ‘We can’t do this.’” Bans don’t currently cover the robot-arm parts, but Bhageria said he worries restrictions could expand to fixed robot arms.
Decades of outsourcing have left U.S. manufacturers unprepared to meet demand, according to Ben Armstrong, executive director of MIT’s Industrial Performance Center, who researches manufacturing competitiveness and automation. The gap means higher costs and longer waits for companies, universities and consumers seeking advanced and everyday electronics.
“A lot of our digital lives are built on the infrastructure of foreign-made components and goods assembled abroad, and that’s not going to change anytime soon,” Armstrong said. “We just don’t know how to make them in the US. So, there will be a learning curve, and during that learning curve process, the price will be high.”
Restrictions and Production Costs
In July, the Federal Communications Commission added power inverters and new advanced robotics, including humanoid robots, to its restricted foreign-made technology list. The United States has also forbidden cars using Chinese software and imposed a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles. Similar tariffs on drones took effect last month, after a ban on new models in December.
The administration has cited protection of sensitive consumer and government data and encouragement of domestic manufacturing as reasons for the restrictions. Analysts and executives warn that limited access to China’s supply chain could slow U.S. progress in advanced industries, including AI and robotics, and in traditional manufacturing.
Michael Murray, chief executive of Kopin Corporation, said it took more than two years to move production of some micro display screens from China to the United States. He estimated U.S. production costs as much as 25% more, though Department of Defense funding offset the expense of moving the supply chain.
“We don’t have the volumes to get the costs down as much as the rest of the market, so there is a price squeeze there that we have to accommodate for,” Murray said. China can produce more micro displays in one week than the United States can produce in a year, he added. More companies have sought U.S.-made parts as sourcing rules for sensitive technologies have tightened.
Supply Chains Under Pressure
Gavin Kenneally, whose company makes industrial and military robot dogs, is seeking a new source of rare earth metals, which China nearly monopolizes globally. Ghost Robotics moved motor production from China to South Korea and buys neodymium magnets from a European company, but China supplies the raw material, and a government ban will cover it starting in January.
“It’s an extremely difficult supply chain problem to solve in the short term,” Kenneally said. He added that officials often announce the policies in advance to give companies time to adjust, and said the bans have had the stimulative effect the government designed them to have.
Saman Farid, founder of industry coalition Robots for America and Formic, which supplies industrial robots to U.S. factories, said a Chinese company may reach its third prototype by the time an American company builds its first. His customers haven’t yet been affected, but he worries restrictions could grow and manufacturers could lose access to competitive equipment and technology.
Universities and consumers also face costs. Sayan Mitra, an engineering professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said several courses use Chinese robotic arms, drones, humanoids and vehicles. Replacing Chinese humanoids with U.S. ones could cost 10 times more, while other drone options might not exist.
The FCC restrictions on mobile robots include new versions of robot vacuums, pool cleaners and lawn mowers, most of which companies make in China. “It’s extremely difficult to move manufacturing to the US,” said Jitesh Ubrani, director of consumer devices research at IDC. Moving production could happen over the long term, he said, but it would probably be very expensive, leaving U.S. consumers to pay more.