Apple will invest $600 billion in the US over the next four years as support for American manufacturing. Yet, as the country’s Commerce Secretary recalled in a recent interview, when Tim Cook was asked when the iPhone would be manufactured in America, he said he would need robotic arms… at scale and with precision.
The President’s narrative has centred on bringing manufacturing back to America. But building new factories will take years. Tariffs alone cannot solve high labour costs, supply chain complexities or a shortage of skilled workers. Will businesses shift to lower-tariff countries instead – or can AI and robotics offer a more sustainable solution?
At the AI Conference in Washington DC, when Vice President JD Vance was asked what the administration thought about job displacement, he said he was optimistic about automation. He added, “… if the robots were coming to take all of our jobs, you would see labour productivity skyrocket in this country. But you actually see labour productivity flatline. And what that means is that our country is under indexed in technology and not over indexed in technology.”
It’s an optimistic vision – one where machines don’t just replace human labour but unlock new value. The implications for manufacturing are profound. If Tesla’s factories can build autonomous cars largely through robotics, can we reimagine electronics, apparel, or medical equipment production the same way?
That’s where AI and robotics come in. Amazon’s fulfilment centres already provide a glimpse into this future. Today, the company has a million robots deployed across its global facilities. Manufactured in the US with local suppliers, these robots sort, lift, stack, read labels and carry packages. In a letter to employees in June, CEO Andy Jassy, wrote “We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs.” So, will Amazon continue to be the second-largest private employer in the US a few years from now?
UK-based AstraZeneca will invest $50 billion by 2030, creating tens of thousands of new jobs. A proposed drug substance facility, in the Commonwealth of Virginia, would be the company’s largest single manufacturing investment in the world. The facility will leverage AI, automation, and data analytics to optimize production.
So, can AI and robotics bring manufacturing back to the US – not by displacing jobs, but by transforming them? Cook’s comment at the top of this piece points to a broader truth: the future of reshoring may not rest on tariffs, but on the power of robots and automation.
Will America’s factories be quieter, smarter, and more precise? And will we see widespread layoffs, or will assembly-line workers become data scientists and prompt engineers?
