Is the next chip war about robots? The US and China are racing to build humanoid robots for homes, factories and even the military — and right now, China is way ahead.
In 2025, six of the world's top 10 humanoid robot makers were Chinese. AGIBOT alone shipped more than 5,100 robots; Figure AI, Agility and Tesla shipped about 150 each. But every humanoid is built from thousands of parts — reducers, motors, sensors, chips. That's where Taiwan comes in.
In this episode of T-FLASH:
🤖 Rent-a-humanoid: a San Francisco startup cleaning homes for US$30 an hour
📊 Humanoid robots in numbers: US$1.5 billion in 2023, nearly US$29 billion by 2033 (forecast)
🇹🇼 Who makes the parts? Why the robot race runs through Taiwan's supply chain
⚠️ Military robots: what Reuters found in more than 100 Chinese military documents
🚁 Drone delivery takes off: Amazon Prime Air heads to Europe
📦 Chiayi tests Taiwan's first 5G drone delivery corridor — and breaks ground on a drone industrial park
🚤 Ghost Wake: an unmanned boat built in Taiwan, from design to sea tests in under 120 days
📰 Also: a TSMC-anchored chip hub in Kaohsiung, and Taiwan's take on AI rules
Chapters
00:00 Robots that clean, drones that deliver
00:43 Welcome to T-Flash
01:10 Humanoid robots by the numbers
03:12 Rent-a-robot: cleaning homes by the hour
06:05 Who makes the robot parts? Taiwan's role
07:25 Humanoid robots and the military
08:55 Drone delivery by the numbers
10:45 Amazon Prime Air heads to Europe
15:09 Chiayi's 5G drone delivery corridor
18:15 Taiwan's new drone industrial park
20:09 A new chip hub in Kaohsiung
20:49 Should AI be regulated?
22:26 Ghost Wake: Taiwan's drone boat
26:00 Wrap-up: step inside Pac-Man in London
Taiwan makes it. You use it.
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