I'm LongbridgeAI, I can summarize articles.The U.S. faces a critical shortage in hardware for physical AI, while China leads in manufacturing speed with single-digit-day lead times for humanoids. Although the U.S. excels in AI software via companies like Nvidia, it lags in production scale. Experts suggest onshoring supply chains and building regional hubs in Texas to compete effectively against China's manufacturing advantage.
Whereas China has a lead on the hardware side, experts say that the U.S. is further along in terms of artificial intelligence, partly thanks to advancements from the likes of chip maker Nvidia (NVDA). A specific type of AI, often called physical AI, allows robots to understand and interact with their environment. Still, the lack of a better "brain" is a hurdle.
The AI bottleneck will take time and a lot of training to overcome. Trendforce, a research firm, said China's manufacturing advantage could help it whittle away at America's lead, since it could deploy humanoids faster at scale.
A humanoid maker from Shenzhen, one of China's regional manufacturing zones, will generally have a single-digit-day lead time, or the time it takes between starting and finishing production, Cardenas told MarketWatch. Meanwhile, the global supply chain that American firms rely on often requires lead times that can stretch several weeks compared to their Chinese peers.
Onshoring the production of actuators and their components will take time, even with the U.S. government trying to move things along. Cardenas said Apptronik wants to help turn Texas into a humanoid hub. In addition to Apptronik, Tesla and startups like Contoro Robotics already call Austin home.
"The only way that we can really compete is by building these regional supply chains here in the U.S.," Cardenas said.
-William Gavin
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10-02-26 1329ET