RoboStore, the primary North American distributor for China’s Unitree Robotics, will begin manufacturing its own robots at a facility on Long Island, New York. The move follows an FCC ban on foreign-made robots, which accelerated the company’s plans to shift production stateside. Unitree’s affordable humanoid and quadruped models have been widely used by universities and tech firms, including Harvard, MIT, Amazon, and Nvidia, via RoboStore’s distribution network.
Teddy Haggerty, RoboStore’s founder and CEO, said the company has already sold and deployed more than 1,500 robots to customers like Cisco, OpenAI, Nvidia, and over 150 universities. The new US-based production line aims to bypass supply chain and regulatory hurdles tied to the FCC’s restrictions.
The pivot underscores the growing impact of US government policies on foreign robotics imports. RoboStore’s decision to localize manufacturing could reshape access to these robots for research and commercial use in the coming months.
