US military funding underpinned China's leading robot dog designs

China's Unitree Robotics, a leading manufacturer of humanoid and quadruped robots, has based the designs of its most successful robot dogs on innovations that were funded by the U.S. military. This connection was revealed by a former U.S. defense technology official and three researchers involved in the original project.

Unitree's Go2 model, launched in 2023 and priced at $1,600, has significantly boosted the company's dominance in the global quadruped robot market, leading to a highly sought-after IPO in Shanghai. Notably, a Unitree robot has also been showcased on Chinese state television accompanying People's Liberation Army troops during an exercise.

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basically, the first Unitree robot that had any kind of scale

The researchers and the former official stated that these robots utilize breakthroughs in quadruped movement that were financed by the U.S. DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory and other military programs. Gavin Kenneally, a former researcher at the University of Pennsylvania who worked on the Army-funded project, noted that it essentially led to "the first Unitree robot that had any kind of scale." Ben Katz from MIT's Biomimetic Robotics Lab added that the dimensions of Unitree's popular Go series are "to the millimetre" identical to a robot he helped develop called Mini Cheetah.

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to the millimetre

Reuters has uncovered these links between Unitree's designs and the Army program for the first time. This situation underscores wider issues with the United States' ability to compete with China's state-directed manufacturing sector in critical high-tech industries, including those vital for national security. Chinese companies, supported by subsidies and extensive factory networks, have captured significant market share in areas like solar panels, drones, and electric vehicles, many of which originated from U.S. government or military-backed research.

While Kenneally commercialized U.S. breakthroughs through his company Ghost Robotics, which supplies advanced robots to U.S. special forces, its production remains small and costly compared to Unitree. In June, the Pentagon designated Unitree as a Chinese military company, a move that, while not a sanction, restricts future U.S. military use of its technology. Unitree has maintained that its robots are intended for civilian applications. The Army Research Laboratory stated that the research "strengthened the broader U.S. robotics ecosystem" and informed subsequent work across government and the private sector.

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strengthened the broader US robotics ecosystem