How One Startup Built a (Mostly) China-Free Robot

Last week, US regulators banned a wide variety of Chinese-made robots from being imported to the United States because of concerns about national security. Saurabh Chandra was ready to seize the moment. His company, Ati Robotics, assembles its robots in India, and Chandra believes they use fewer Chinese parts than almost any other robotics company in the US.

Investment in robotics startups hit record highs this year, both in the number of deals and dollars invested, according to PitchBook, which tracks venture capital flows. But many of those companies primarily develop software, and they largely still rely on Chinese suppliers for their hardware.

The Federal Communications Commission’s decision to ban new models of human-like robots, known as humanoids, and other advanced devices from China could hamper the growth of many smaller robotics firms in the US. But some businesses could benefit, including Ati.

The startup was founded in 2017 to develop motors for self-driving cars. Years later, it zeroed in on making its own robots, including tuggers and pallet movers that cart tons of materials throughout big facilities. Ati developed its own hardware, believing that it would lead to better functionality, a bet that Chandra says many of his advisers cautioned against but one that wound up naturally limiting reliance on China.

It has begun to pay off. Ati has several hundred robots currently in operation at warehouses and factories and more than 50 customers in total, Chandra says. Ati’s first humanoid, which moves heavy bins around, will go into service later this year.

Chandra spoke with WIRED last week about how Ati Robotics steered clear of China, while building robots he argues can still compete with the industry’s best on price and performance.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

WIRED: Developing hardware is expensive. How were you able to financially sustain doing that?

Saurabh Chandra: R&D is in Bangalore, which helps with our labor costs. Bangalore was undergoing this electric vehicle revolution in the two-wheeler, three-wheeler category in India. And it turns out that the kind of vehicles we were making for the robotics industry happened to have a similar power profile and characteristic as the two-wheeler and three-wheelers being made in the EV industry.

We tried to leverage the components and supply chain being developed for those vehicles. Typically, automotive parts are very reliable and are produced in large volumes, hence they are very good and cost-efficient. Though we had to do engineering with some of those vendors to make the parts work in a robot. But once we did, we had a great win.

One of your robot models is China-free, right, but not the others?

They have different levels of what I might call “supply chain resiliency.” Two of our best-selling models—our 10,000-pound tugger and the pallet mover—use very few parts from China. They’re tugging trolleys—you may be taking raw material from stores to the factory line or from one process point to another.

But even with the humanoid that we have, the full arm is done here in Bangalore. The actuator is also done here, but we do get the harmonic drive from China, for example, and the frameless motor, at least for now.

The battery cells come from China. But we could, for example, get the cells from South Korea or Japan tomorrow. So those are passive components. There are some components that do come from China when we go deeper. We use induction motors, so even the magnet in the motor is not coming from China. That’s a very different choice from many of the people who are doing robots.