The robotics race is like the space race — the US needs to invest to win. Because according to billionaire Mark Cuban, robots are already going to win — the only question left is which country wins with them. Cuban used his Blog Maverick platform to inform President-elect Donald Trump that the US needs to get competitive with the rest of the world on robotics — and fast. “We are not even close right now,” Cuban said, about the robotics race that the US “has to win.” Robotics should be a huge part of any infrastructure spending package, Cuban advises. Cuban would allocate $100 billion to it — 10% of Trump’s proposed $1 trillion infrastructure budget.
Trump has acknowledged robotics is a “big thing,” saying “we’ll make the robots” in the future. But Cuban points out that China, Korea and Europe are offering billions in incentives for robotics and the US lags behind. Cuban says Trump’s plan needs to look “forward, not backwards” because robotics will dominate the future whether former factory workers want it to or not. Cuban does show a silver lining in the news that the US isn’t really competitive in this all important market. China, Cuban says, is spending just $3 billion a year on robotics. The US is in a position to quickly blow by them, if it has its priorities right.
