Ati Robotics assembles its robots in Bangalore with fewer Chinese parts than nearly any US-facing competitor, and last week's Federal Communications Commission ban on new imports of Chinese humanoid robots turned that supply chain into a business advantage. The startup already has several hundred robots deployed across more than 50 customers, with a 10,000-pound tugger that founder Saurabh Chandra describes as effectively China-free and a pallet mover with less than 5% Chinese content. Its first humanoid ships later this year.
The FCC ruling targets new models of humanoids and other advanced devices from China, and the agency framed the move around national security. It arrives during a record year for robotics venture capital — PitchBook shows 2026 setting all-time highs in both deal count and dollars — but most of that money has flowed to software-heavy firms that still source hardware from Chinese suppliers. Those companies now face a scramble for alternatives.
Ati was founded in 2017 to build motors for self-driving cars before pivoting into full robots, including tuggers and pallet movers that haul tons of material through warehouses and factories. Chandra kept research and development in Bangalore for labor-cost reasons and rode the timing of India's electric two-wheeler and three-wheeler boom, which produced automotive-grade components with power profiles close to what robots need. That let Ati piggyback on a maturing non-Chinese supply chain rather than build one from scratch.
Key facts
- 01The FCC last week banned new models of Chinese-made humanoid robots and other advanced devices from import into the US on national security grounds.
- 02Ati Robotics assembles in Bangalore and runs several hundred robots at more than 50 customers, including a 10,000-pound tugger built almost entirely China-free.
- 03The company's pallet mover uses less than 5% Chinese parts; its first humanoid ships later this year and will eventually be assembled in Madison Heights, Michigan.
- 04Founded in 2017 to build motors for self-driving cars, Ati leveraged Bangalore's EV two- and three-wheeler supply chain to sidestep Chinese components.
- 05PitchBook records robotics venture funding at all-time highs in 2026 by both deal count and dollars, though most funded firms still rely on Chinese hardware.
Different Ati models carry different exposure to China. The 10,000-pound tugger relies on Chinese content only for its battery cells, and even those can be swapped to South Korean or Japanese suppliers. The pallet mover crosses the 5% Chinese-parts threshold largely because of one solid-state lidar sensor with no non-Chinese equivalent; the tugger avoids that by using US-based Ouster lidar instead.
The humanoid is a harder problem. Ati builds the full arm and actuator in Bangalore but still imports the harmonic drive and frameless motor from China, along with battery cells. Chandra says the harmonic drives are also produced in Germany, Taiwan, and Japan at higher prices, and Ati has not yet optimized the humanoid supply chain because the product is early. The company plans to eventually assemble humanoids at a facility in Madison Heights, near Detroit.
There are engineering trade-offs. Ati uses induction motors rather than the brushless motors with permanent magnets favored by Chinese suppliers, accepting slightly lower efficiency in exchange for cutting the magnet dependency. Chandra's answer is to compensate with more battery capacity — a workable margin when the buyer is a warehouse operator rather than a consumer.
Chandra says supply-chain provenance has not been central to Ati's marketing, but customers bring it up. Some tell the company it influenced their purchasing decision, a signal that mattered even before the FCC acted. That posture positions Ati more like a defense-adjacent industrial supplier than a Silicon Valley humanoid startup chasing consumer demos.
The reaction inside the robotics industry, by Chandra's account, has been denial. He describes meeting founders at a recent conference who had been lobbying in Washington against exactly this kind of restriction and failed to stop it. The FCC rule does not forbid any Chinese content, but it bans finished Chinese-made humanoids and advanced devices — enough to force redesigns at firms that had built their bill of materials around Shenzhen.
“We are an accidental beneficiary.”— Saurabh Chandra, Ati Robotics founder
The clear winners are non-Chinese robot builders with existing manufacturing footprints. Chandra names Tesla's Optimus, assembled in the US, and Figure, which also manufactures domestically, alongside European and other overseas firms. Ati counts itself among the accidental beneficiaries — the company optimized for hardware control and cost, not geopolitics, and found itself compliant by default.
The bigger question is whether the ban actually reshores robot production or simply shifts the dependency from China to India, Taiwan, Germany, Japan, and South Korea. Ati's own model shows how porous the line is: the tugger is China-free except for battery cells, the pallet mover clears 95% non-Chinese content, and the humanoid is a work in progress. Building a fully domestic US robot remains harder than building one that avoids Chinese final assembly.
For the AI robotics market, the FCC action changes the math on where hardware value accrues. Software-first robotics companies that treated the chassis as a commodity now face real procurement risk, while firms with vertically integrated hardware — Ati, Tesla, Figure — gain pricing power and a compliance moat. The ban follows a pattern of US technology policy pushing AI hardware supply chains toward allied countries, and it accelerates a bifurcation of the humanoid market into a Chinese domestic ecosystem and a US-plus-allies one. Startups still betting that a Shenzhen bill of materials will remain viable in North America are, on current evidence, betting against the regulator.
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