bottleneckScore 70/100Research
Andrew Kang: Humanoid robot hand complexity is a critical 30-50% cost component and design bottleneck that hasn't evolved in 50 years
Andrew Kang· Mechanism Capital· Robotics· 2026-06-02· about Humanoid robotics industry (general)
“The hand is super complex, one of the most complex parts of the robot... you need to make sure that even though you have a lot of really small components, that they can withstand wear and tear for years and years and years, and that they can be very precise because everything you're doing with the hand is very, very precise. And so I think they're still going through design to really perfect that... if you look at actuators, for example, right, they make up around 30 to 50% of the bomb cost of a humanoid and that space really hasn't significantly involved for 50 years.”
Why it matters
Actuators represent nearly half of humanoid robot BOM costs but the underlying technology is stagnant, creating a critical supply and innovation gap. Companies solving this bottleneck could capture significant margin as volumes scale.
Investment implication
Actuator manufacturers and specialized hand engineering suppliers are potential beneficiaries. Tesla and Figure may face margin pressure until next-gen actuator suppliers scale. Standard Bots and others pursuing AI-native hardware approaches may have advantage over legacy suppliers.