MEAGHAN TOBIN2026年8月14日Teddy Haggerty knew exactly what he was up against when he decided to build humanoid robots in the United States.决定在美国制造人形机器人时，泰迪·哈格蒂非常清楚自己面临的是什么。Since 2022, Mr. Haggerty had been the main North American distributor for Unitree Robotics, China’s leading humanoid robot manufacturer. That role has given him a close-up view of an industry Chinese companies command, producing robots more cheaply and at a scale that American manufacturers have yet to approach.自2022年以来，哈格蒂一直是中国领先的人形机器人制造商宇树科技在北美的主要分销商。这一角色让他近距离观察到一个由中国企业主导的行业——中国生产机器人的生产成本更低、规模更大，美国制造商至今难以企及。“In China, these things are just walking around the streets,” he said. “They have so much more experience than we do.”“在中国，这些东西已经在街上走了，”他说，“他们的经验比我们丰富得多。”But in a warehouse in a leafy industrial park on suburban Long Island, Mr. Haggerty, 30, is trying to pull off a seemingly quixotic task — to produce humanlike robots in the United States.但在长岛郊区一个绿树成荫的工业园区内的仓库里，30岁的哈格蒂正试图完成一项看似不切实际的任务——在美国生产类人机器人。His new company, Robo Inc., is the latest venture for a serial entrepreneur who has spent the previous decade chasing the next big thing, from drone photography and Bitcoin mining to importing protective gear during the Covid-19 pandemic. Building robots, however, means taking on an industry China has designated a strategic priority. That is a challenge of a different magnitude.他的新公司Robo Inc.是这位连续创业者的最新项目。过去十年间，他一直在追逐下一个风口，从无人机摄影、比特币挖矿，到新冠疫情期间进口防护装备。然而，制造机器人意味着要挑战一个中国已列为战略优先的产业。这完全是另一种量级的挑战。Mr. Haggerty plans to procure components from all over the world and make some in-house. But even as he sets out to establish a robotics beachhead in the United States, he has confronted a stark realization. China has near-total dominance of the supply chain. So building a robot entirely free of Chinese parts was not practical.哈格蒂计划从全球采购零部件，并自行生产一部分。但即使着手在美国建立了机器人产业的滩头阵地，他也面临一个残酷的现实：中国在供应链上几乎占据完全主导地位。因此，制造一台完全不含中国零部件的机器人并不现实。人形机器人背后的技术仍处于早期阶段。这些机器人很擅长执行预设脚本，但在应对不断变化的外部世界时显得力不从心。Companies that went to great lengths to cut China out of their supply chains were in the end just making a more expensive product, he said. It was far more cost-effective to import certain parts, like batteries and the aluminum skeleton that makes a robot’s body.他说，那些费尽心力将中国排除在供应链之外的公司最终只是生产出更昂贵的产品。进口某些部件（如电池和构成机器人身体的铝制骨架）要经济实惠得多。“There are some pieces that are already dialed in — what are you doing changing them?” he said. His office, in Plainview, shares space with a workshop littered with spare robot heads and hands, where a small team of engineers builds custom parts to adapt humanoid and four-legged robots for use in warehouse and health care work.“有些部件已经是成熟的了，你何必去改动它们呢？”他说。他在普莱恩维尤的办公室位于一个车间里，那里散落着备用的机器人头部和手部，一小队工程师正在那里制造定制部件，以使双足和四足机器人适应仓库和医疗保健领域的工作。In some ways, Mr. Haggerty is caught between China and Washington, where officials have called for more robots to be made in the United States. He believes the result will be a more fragmented global market for humanoids: Chinese robot companies will continue to sell in their home market, while companies like his will compete for customers in the United States.在某种程度上，哈格蒂夹在中国和华盛顿之间，美国官方呼吁更多机器人要在美国本土制造。他认为，结果将是全球人形机器人市场更加分裂：中国机器人公司将继续在本土市场销售，而像他这样的公司将争取美国客户。The United States and China are already vying for supremacy in artificial intelligence and semiconductors. Now robots that look and move like humans are increasingly emerging as another front in that competition. Companies in both countries increasingly see robots as the physical embodiment and next evolutionary step of A.I.美国和中国已经在人工智能和半导体领域展开霸主之争。如今，外形和动作都像人类的机器人正日益成为这一竞争的又一战场。两国企业日益将机器人视为人工智能的实体呈现和下一个进化步骤。The geopolitical tensions came into sharper focus last month when the Federal Communications Commission announced a ban on the import of new models of foreign-made humanoid robots into the United States, citing national security concerns. The measure did not explicitly target China, but most new humanoid robots are made by Chinese companies.上个月，地缘政治紧张局势更加凸显。美国联邦通信委员会宣布以国家安全为由，禁止新型外国制造人形机器人进口到美国。该措施并未明确针对中国，但大多数新型人形机器人由中国公司制造。哈格蒂计划在长岛用来自全球（包括中国）的零部件组装机器人。中国供应商提供的某些部件要便宜得多。 This technology is still in the early stages of development, but supporters envision a future when humanoid robots become commonplace: cleaning homes, checking vitals in hospitals and working hazardous jobs in mines and chemical plants. But such activities would also give robots access to vast amounts of data about where and how people lived. For the United States government, this is potentially too sensitive for machines not made in America.这项技术仍处于发展初期，但其支持者展望的未来人形机器人将变得司空见惯：打扫家庭、在医院检查生命体征，以及在矿山和化工厂从事危险工作。但这类活动也会让机器人获取大量关于人们生活地点和方式的数据。对美国而言，这可能过于敏感，不宜由非美国制造的机器来处理。Right now, though, very few are.但目前，美国制造的机器人少之又少。China’s robotics industry was built on billions of dollars in state funding and grew out of the country’s world-beating electric vehicle industry. The country’s leading humanoid robotics start-up, Unitree, is preparing to go public in Shanghai at a valuation of $9 billion.中国的机器人产业建立在数十亿美元的政府资金之上，并脱胎于该国领先世界的电动汽车产业。中国领先的人形机器人初创公司宇树科技正筹备在上海上市，估值达90亿美元。Fledgling U.S. robot makers will need substantial financial and policy support to compete, said Sunny Cheung, a fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a think tank that studies Chinese government influence. “Merely banning Chinese robots is just the first step,” he said.研究中国政府影响力的智库詹姆斯敦基金会研究员张昆阳(Sunny Cheung)表示，羽翼未丰的美国机器人制造商需要大量的财政和政策支持才能竞争。“单纯地禁止中国机器人只是第一步，”他说。In the United States, humanoid robotics is still in its infancy. Analysts estimate that the top humanoid companies made just a few hundred robots last year. Most aren’t available for purchase by the average consumer, but instead are part of test projects with other companies in warehouses and factories. By comparison, Unitree and another Chinese company, Agibot, together made about 10,000.在美国，人形机器人产业仍处于萌芽阶段。分析师估计，去年顶尖人形机器人公司仅生产了几百台机器人。大多数并不面向普通消费者销售，而是用于其他公司在仓库和工厂的测试项目。相比之下，宇树科技和另一家中国公司智元机器人合计制造了约1万台。Even Elon Musk’s Optimus line of humanoids, which he recently predicted would be “the biggest product ever,” relies heavily on components made in China.即使是埃隆·马斯克的Optimus人形机器人系列——他近期预测这将是“有史以来最重大的产品”——也严重依赖中国制造的零部件。And makers of non-humanoid robots, like iRobot, the American company behind the Roomba, have struggled to compete with Chinese rivals. The Chinese supplier of iRobot took control when the company filed for bankruptcy in December.Roomba的制造商、美国公司iRobot这样的非人形机器人制造商也难以与中国竞争对手抗衡。去年12月iRobot申请破产时，其中国供应商接管了该公司。And Chinese humanoids are far cheaper and more widely available than their American counterparts. Unitree’s flagship humanoid retails for under $14,000.中国的人形机器人比美国同类产品便宜得多，也更容易获得。宇树科技的旗舰人形机器人零售价不到1.4万美元。Mr. Haggerty said that after he appeared at a trade show in Las Vegas alongside a Unitree robot last year, he was flooded with inquiries from companies like Amazon and OpenAI that wanted to try out humanoids. They wanted more robots than he could import.哈格蒂说，去年他在拉斯维加斯的一个展会上与一台宇树机器人一同亮相后，亚马逊和OpenAI等公司纷纷向他咨询，希望试用其机器人。这些公司的机器人需求超出了他的进口能力。Start-up founders and investors say it is virtually impossible to set up factories in the United States that could compete with the output of China’s supply chain on cost. It is more expensive to pay American workers. And raw materials, from the lithium in the batteries to the aluminum molded into the skeleton, have to be obtained from China anyway.初创公司创始人和投资者表示，在美国建厂几乎不可能在成本上与中国供应链的产量竞争。美国工人的工资更高。而且，从电池中的锂到模压成骨架的铝，原材料无论如何都须从中国获取。China’s dominance over the supply chain for robots that act like humans is closely tied to its electric vehicle industry. China became the largest E.V. exporter by focusing on producing virtually every component domestically, from screws to lithium-ion batteries. Now, many of the same companies that manufacture parts for electric vehicles supply robot makers, too.中国在类人机器人供应链上的主导地位与其电动汽车产业密切相关。中国之所以能成为全球最大的电动汽车出口国，是因为它几乎实现了所有零部件的国产化，从螺丝到锂离子电池无一例外。如今，许多为电动汽车制造零部件的同一批公司也为机器人制造商供货。“If you are in China and you need a component, you can get it immediately — where in the United States you might get it in a couple of days,” said Brad Porter, the chief executive of Cobot, a robotics company in Santa Clara, Calif.“如果你在中国，需要某个部件，你可以立刻拿到——而在美国，你可能要等上几天，”加州圣克拉拉机器人公司Cobot的首席执行官布拉德·波特说。Mr. Porter previously spent more than a decade at Amazon, where he led the company’s effort to use robots. He pointed to Amazon’s factory in Massachusetts where it makes equipment for its warehouses as an example of successful American robot making. But these are not humanoids. They are robotic devices that convey large loads across factory floors. Mr. Porter said humanoid robots were not the right solution in most situations for Amazon.波特此前在亚马逊工作了十多年，领导了该公司的机器人应用项目。他提到亚马逊在马萨诸塞州的工厂，称这个为公司仓库制造设备的厂是美国制造机器人的成功典范。但那些不是人形机器人，而是在工厂车间里搬运重物的机器人装置。波特说，对亚马逊而言，在大多数情况下人形机器人并非合适的解决方案。“There was no use case at Amazon where legs conferred any advantage,” he said.“在亚马逊，没有任何应用场景证明腿部具有什么优势，”他说。机器人公司的高管们承认，在机器人能够像人类一样高效工作之前，这项技术还有很长的路要走。人形机器人因其协调一致的舞蹈表演备受关注，但它们也存在容易失去平衡的问题。The actual usefulness of humanoids remains a live debate. Even robotics company executives concede that people are still far more efficient workers than the robots, which struggle to make complex decisions in rapidly changing settings.人形机器人的实际效用仍存争议。即便是机器人公司的高管也承认，人类仍是远比机器人更高效的工人，机器人在瞬息万变的环境中难以做出复杂决策。While Chinese companies have a lead on producing humanoid robots, none have demonstrated a clear use case for the technology.尽管中国企业在生产人形机器人方面处于领先地位，但尚无一家企业展示出该技术的明确应用场景。Chinese robots, including Unitree’s, have drawn international attention for coordinated dancing displays on Chinese television and at the Super Bowl. But these robots are following preprogrammed scripts. Creating robots capable of complex decision-making in response to the changing world remains a challenge.包括宇树的机器人在内，中国的机器人曾因在中国电视节目和超级碗上的协调舞蹈表演而吸引国际关注。但这些机器人执行的是预编程脚本。制造能够根据变化的环境做出复杂决策的机器人仍是挑战。More broadly, China has already established another key lead in robotics: using robots to automate manufacturing. In 2024, according to a report by the International Federation of Robotics, a nonprofit trade group, more than two million robots were working in Chinese factories, and another 300,000 were installed — more than in the rest of the world combined.从更大的层面来说，中国在机器人领域还建立了另一个关键优势：利用机器人实现制造自动化。根据非营利行业组织国际机器人联合会的报告，2024年，超过200万台机器人在中国工厂工作，而新安装机器人达到30万台，超过了世界其他地区的总和。摄影：Amir HamjaMeaghan Tobin是时报科技记者，常驻台北，报道亚洲地区的商业和科技新闻，重点关注中国。翻译：纽约时报中文网点击查看本文英文版。