Google DeepMind unveiled a new model this week that gives humanoid robots finer control over how they interact with objects around them. The advancements point to the West’s lead over China in robotics software — the “brains” that power an android. There simply aren’t that many US-made robots yet, and many American researchers and startups use Chinese hardware to train and test their own tech. “People are going to be pretty stuck in terms of options,” China tech expert Kyle Chan told Semafor. And if the US’ goal is to build a fully made-in-America pipeline for robots, Chan said, “it’s really, to put it bluntly, a hopeless cause.”