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The US closes its border to new Chinese robots — and BYD's first humanoid walks out three days later

The United States Federal Communications Commission updated its Covered List on 28 July 2026 to include foreign-made humanoid and quadruped robots, alongside connected power inverters. The effect is narrow in wording and wide in practice: the agency will not grant equipment authorisation to new device models, which is the permission a radio-emitting device needs before it can be legally imported or sold in the US. Robots already authorised, and units already bought, are not affected. The stated reasoning came from a White House task force which concluded that foreign-built robots could constitute a cybersecurity risk to critical infrastructure, with espionage and the protection of the domestic AI industry named alongside it. China objected publicly. The measure is not written against a single company, but the market it describes is overwhelmingly Chinese: the great majority of humanoids and almost all commercial quadrupeds shipping today are built in China. Three days later the point was illustrated. On roughly 1 August, at its Di Space experience centre in Zhengzhou, BYD showed the physical unit of Xiao Di, the first humanoid from the world's largest electric-car maker. It stands 1.61 metres and weighs 58.5 kilograms; Chinese reports credit it with 31 degrees of freedom across hands, legs, hips and neck, 360-degree panoramic vision, and real-time interpreting between six Chinese dialects and six foreign languages. Its job is not manufacturing. BYD wants two or three of them in each dealership, welcoming visitors, explaining cars and running product demonstrations, and describes them as support for sales staff rather than a replacement. The company set up the team behind the robot in late 2024, inside its 15th Business Division; it presents Xiao Di as a working machine, not a concept. For a catalogue like this one, the ruling changes what a status badge means. A robot can be in volume production, publicly priced and commercially deployed, and still be unavailable in the largest single market for reasons that have nothing to do with the machine. The near-term winner is the one American humanoid programme with no Chinese competition to price against; the near-term loser is any buyer outside China who was waiting for the cheap option to arrive.