“We were roadkilled in a larger agenda,” stated Colin Angle, co-founder of iRobot, as the firm, once synonymous with consumer robots, now entered bankruptcy and transferred every asset in its possession over to its Chinese manufacturer, Picea Robotics. It began with the regulator’s rejection of an Amazon acquisition deal valued at $1.7 billion, denying iRobot access to much-needed capital and size in order to face head-on the China-sourced robot industry.
By early 2020, China had already become the biggest robot vacuum market, where local companies were pouring two to three times as much as iRobot into development, leveraging government subsidy schemes. This is not the advantage of cheap labor, although it was definitely a part. The truth is, China had the scale advantage, where engineers in cities such as Songshan Lake were able to create new products five to ten times faster, at a cheaper price, compared to Silicon Valley. According to data by the International Federation of Robotics, the country had already shown a record installation base of 52 percent of all robot installations globally by 2022, besides having an 80-90 percent localize rate for mid-level components.
The failure of iRobot to keep this rate of progress was further exacerbated by the concerns of U.S. and EU regulators over the potential for Amazon to use its marketplace power to shut out competition. As Angle stressed, regulators overstressed the statement to be made about the evils of “big tech” and did not adequately consider the merger’s competitive strengths and weaknesses. As a consequence, the firm was left with a third of its staff cut, research and development put on hold with the departure of its leadership to face the already stiff competition from China’s Ecovacs and Roborock, who combined lower pricing, which could be as much as 30 percent lower than the competitors from Japan and Europe, with innovative advancements in navigation systems, artificial intelligence-based object recognition, and smart homes.
In the bankruptcy agreement, Picea inherits not only iRobot’s patents and designs but also its app infrastructure, which processes millions of sensor-enriched autonomous mobile robots’ data. In previous versions of Roomba’s “Smart Map” feature, the device maintained its encrypted floor maps and pictures of objects within the cloud, allowing it to carry out operations like targeted cleaning within specific rooms while avoiding obstacles like pet droppings or cables. Though Angle repeatedly emphasized that ‘privacy and security are fundamental to Roomba’s design,’ he could not comment on Picea’s future focus, if any, on these aspects to meet its consumers’ expectations or ensure its own priorities remain on target.
In terms of supply chain, the fate of iRobot shows that a structural disadvantage exists that affects U.S.-based robotics companies. Current U.S. robotics trade is $1.26 billion, with no foundries and domestic component manufacturers for industrial robots. Startups, no matter how brilliant, also use imported actuators, harmonic gear reducers, and sophisticated sensors, because these industries are still led by companies from Japan, Germany, and Switzerland. In the absence of long-term capital and a united industrial policy, American businesses are likely to be forced out of the industry because of cost pressure.
China’s robotics policy is an interesting mix of home market protection and targeted purchases abroad. Midea Group’s acquisition of KUKA, a leading robotics company in Germany, immediately provided it with leading-edge technology in high-end industrial arm technology, and Estun and EFORT have assimilated European and US experts in motion control and vision systems technology. This is what DJI did in drones massive engineering forces, government funding, and scaling up volumes are sufficient for world leadership. Now, in consumer robotics, the same template is at work, and Chinese companies intend to UserType into leading-edge embodied AI, including humanoid robotics, by 2027.
Angle’s observation that “China is good at robots” is significant in the larger context of the development of embodied AI systems. This is because the development of physical or robot-based AI systems that perform complex and adaptive tasks necessitates the involvement of hardware and software in the process. However, the combined efforts of government, universities, and industries in China are quickly bringing the two together, but the United States is doing the opposite. Testimonies before the United States Congress by the CEOs of various industries, including Apptronik’s Jeff Cardenas, have advanced the need for the development of a national robotics strategy, federal lending for advanced manufacturing equipment, and the readjustment of tariffs to offset foreign subsidies.
The iRobot experience is a warning to robots engineers and policymakers: Without a common industry strategy, government regulation can lead to a faster outloading of cutting-edge technologies into the hands of rival nations with deeper pockets and shorter innovation cycles. In a global race where low-cost hardware, control of global supply chains, and inherent AIs will set the nationality of robots market leaders, the U.S. is faced with rebuilding its robots industry before additional landmark companies face a similar fate.
