Boston Dynamics interim CEO Amanda McMaster argues that the US must prevent Chinese-made humanoid robots from entering the country, citing data leaks from Chinese quadrupeds already seen in the US, and calls for a concerted national robotics strategy to protect IP and bring manufacturing to allied countries. ✦ AI generated
Amanda McMaster · All-In Podcast · 2026-07-29 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 42:40
“Your personal opinion as the CEO of this company and as an American, under any circumstances, should we allow humanoid robotics from China in the United States?”
It's not safe. Right. We've already we've already heard um about leaks that are happening with some of the quadripeds that you're seeing um in the United States and it's being back channelled back to China. Listen, we we have seen what happens if we let China win in the semiconductor space. You know, we can't do that with robotics. So, we need to have a concerted effort to protect our IP to um make sure that we are bringing manufacturing of of this ecosystem into the United States or into our allied countries. And that means that we need to take our national robotic strategy. We're lucky enough that we get to sit at the table in some of these discussions. Um I'm hoping that more companies in the US join us um in in taking taking up this mission. Not only do we have to win this, we have to make sure that the rest of the world uses our platform rather than China's.
verbatim transcript · starts at 42:40
42:26that exist in their facility and how this robot will interact with it. That's going to live somewhere in between. So it could be on on robot if you needed it to. It could be in the cloud. Um we'll figure out the wrapper for that. What percentage of the robot is built in the United States or outside of China and Taiwan today? >> 100% of the robots. >> 100%. So there's no issue with the
42:46sovereignty of robots in the United States. We're seeing a lot of cheap robots coming out of China. >> Yeah. >> Your personal opinion as the CEO of this company and as an American, under any circumstances, should we allow humanoid robotics from China in the United States? >> No. >> No. Why? >> It's not safe. Right. We've already we've already heard um about leaks that are happening with some of the
43:07quadripeds that you're seeing um in the United States and it's being back channelled back to China. Listen, we we have seen what happens if we let China win in the semiconductor space. You know, we can't do that with robotics. So, we need to have a concerted effort to protect our IP to um make sure that we are bringing manufacturing of of this ecosystem into the United States or into
43:27our allied countries. And that means that we need to take our national robotic strategy. We're lucky enough that we get to sit at the table in some of these discussions. Um I'm hoping that more companies in the US join us um in in taking taking up this mission. >> Yeah, we have to be pretty serious about this. It's an existential issue because these >> not only do we have to win this, we have
43:48to make sure that the rest of the world uses our platform rather than China's. How do you think about the military application of these? Obviously military is uh you know the the the field has been changed with drones in a way and at a velocity no pun intended that I don't think anybody anticipated because of what's happened in Ukraine and now we see in the Middle East with the war with
44:13Iran. How do you think about Atlas and Spot in the battlefield? Where are they at in terms of deployment uh in the military? Yeah. So, we've been we've been pretty public about the fact that we have an anti-weaponization stance. Um but listen, um I think that um for what we're trying to do right now um in industrial use cases, it's a distraction for our business, you know.