US lawmakers push for a national robotics commission as China dominates the automation race
China installed nearly nine times more industrial robots than the United States in 2024, according to the International Federation of Robotics.
US Senators have joined bipartisan efforts by lawmakers in the Congress to create a national commission that will urgently look for ways to regain America’s leadership in robotics even as China threatens to run away with the prize.
Senator Dave McCormick, the Republican from Pennsylvania, is driving the measure in the Senate. On June 4 he introduced S. 4686, the Senate version of the National Commission on Robotics Act, alongside Democrats John Hickenlooper and Martin Heinrich and Republican Todd Young.
This comes on the heels of a plan introduced by lawmakers in the US Congress to do for robotics what the house once did for semiconductors and space: define the race before it is lost. A new bipartisan bill would create a temporary national commission to examine America’s robotics competitiveness, supply chains, workforce needs and security risks, but its real value may lie in forcing Washington to confront how badly the country has drifted behind.
The bill, the National Commission on Robotics Act, was introduced on February 3 by Jay Obernolte, Jennifer McClellan and Bob Latta. It would set up an 18-member commission under the Commerce Department, with experts drawn from industry, academia and government, and ask for an interim report within a year and a final report within two.
The wider context is global and unforgiving. China installed nearly nine times more industrial robots than the United States in 2024, according to the International Federation of Robotics, while the EU is building a tougher regulatory perimeter around AI and robotics through its AI Act, which is becoming a reference point for safety, transparency and oversight.
“Is it too late for America to regain its leadership in robotics? My answer is no, but we need to act now,” Jeff Burnstein, president of the Association for Advancing Automation, told lawmakers at a House hearing this week. That urgency is not mere industrial lobbying; it reflects a broader fear that the next wave of automation, especially “physical AI”, will be set by those who combine capital, standards and scale fastest.
McCormick, a former hedge-fund manager with deep ties to Pittsburgh’s robotics scene, framed the commission as essential to preserving America’s technological edge over adversaries and building the workforce needed for a technology-driven future.
He highlighted Pittsburgh’s “Robotics Row” — home to companies like Gecko Robotics and Agility Robotics — as proof that American robotics leadership creates high-paying jobs and strengthens domestic supply chains, yet warned that dependence on foreign-manufactured robotics raises urgent questions about supply-chain security, economic competitiveness and national defence.
The commission itself is modest, almost deliberately so. It would not write a robotics code or create a new regulator; it would gather facts, identify gaps and advise Congress on policy. Yet in Washington, commissions often serve as political recognition that a sector has moved from novelty to strategy. The bill’s scope is telling: it covers competitiveness, deployment in industrial and commercial sectors, workforce incentives, foreign policies and supply-chain dependencies.
That breadth matters because robotics is no longer a niche manufacturing story. It is becoming a platform technology for factories, logistics, elder care and defence, which means the policy question is shifting from whether robots should be encouraged to how their spread can be made more resilient, more productive and less dependent on foreign suppliers. For Congress, the danger is not overregulation but delay: in robotics, as in other strategic technologies, indecision is a form of industrial policy too.