The Federal Communications Commission's decision to restrict new Chinese-made humanoid and advanced mobile robots is drawing praise from at least one corner of the American industry it is meant to protect — and a pointed warning alongside it.
Ariyan Kabir, CEO of GrayMatter Robotics, called the FCC's move 'one of the most significant industrial policy decisions the United States has taken in years.' Writing in Fortune, he argued the ruling reflects a growing recognition that robotics is no longer simply another technology market but 'a strategic capability that will shape manufacturing, economic competitiveness and national security for decades to come.'
The endorsement, however, comes with a condition. 'Protection may buy America time,' Kabir wrote. 'It will not, by itself, make America the world's robotics leader.'
The Scale Gap Is Real
The numbers Kabir cites are difficult to dismiss. China's commercial shipbuilding industry now holds more than 230 times the production capacity of the United States. Its factories run more than two million industrial robots — roughly five times the American total. Those figures, he argues, reflect 'a long-term national strategy to expand industrial capacity, strengthen supply chains and turn technological advances into manufacturing advantage.'
The United States, by contrast, has spent the past three years debating foundation models and generative AI — software conversations that matter, Kabir concedes, but that have 'obscured another transformation that may ultimately prove just as important': artificial intelligence reshaping the physical economy.
Factory SuperIntelligence
At GrayMatter Robotics, Kabir describes that shift as 'Factory SuperIntelligence' — manufacturing environments where AI continuously perceives, learns and adapts in real time. The practical result: systems that can inspect, grind, sand, coat, assemble and move materials across aerospace, defense, shipbuilding and heavy industry, sectors where every part is slightly different and every production line presents new variables.
The workforce argument is central to his case. Experienced tradespeople are retiring faster than they can be replaced. Fewer younger workers are entering industrial careers. 'Simply hiring more people is unlikely to solve the problem,' he wrote. The purpose of physical AI, in his framing, is not labor substitution but augmentation — removing production bottlenecks that have constrained factories for years and allowing experienced workers to focus where their judgment creates the greatest value.
A Strategy to Match the Ambition
Kabir's prescription: invest in domestic manufacturing capacity, strengthen supply chains for critical components and accelerate deployment of American robotics. He places the sector in the same category as semiconductor manufacturing, energy infrastructure and advanced materials — foundational to long-term economic strength.
'The FCC has acknowledged that reality,' he wrote. 'Now the United States needs a strategy that matches its strengths in innovation with equal ambition in production.'
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The FCC's ban is a necessary defensive move, and this publication has no quarrel with it. Keeping Beijing's hardware — and the data pipelines it carries — out of American factories and shipyards is a baseline requirement of industrial sovereignty. But Kabir's broader point deserves a hearing on the right: free enterprise wins races by building, not just by banning competitors. The federal government's proper role is to clear regulatory obstacles, secure supply chains and get out of the way of the capital that wants to flow into domestic robotics. Protection without production is just managed decline at a slower pace. The market is ready to answer — the question is whether Washington will let it.
