SoftBank-backed U.S. unit of robotics startup CloudMinds has changed its name to its own distance from the China-based company, said two experts in the case, and are selling face-scan temperature monitors through T -Mobile US.
The unit is selling its cloud-related products under the new name at a time when there was growing concern in the United States about the national security risk of Chinese companies collecting and using personal data of U.S. citizens. .
Documents filed in California showed the unit became Wright Robotics in August, after the United States in May added CloudMinds to the list of so-called entities citing the company’s risk of acquisition materials and technology for Chinese weapons.
The United States may restrict sales to companies on the blacklist of home-made products as well as overseas-manufactured products containing U.S. technology.
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He expanded the definition of military end use in April to include any company that supported the maintenance or production of weapons products even if they were doing mostly commercial business.
CloudMinds has since been outsourced by state-funded funds in Shanghai as part of Chinese government action to promote such companies, said two others familiar with the matter.
It has also been on a promotional campaign by marketing their technology as a coronavirus antagonist, with the U.S. rebranding to Wright Robotics in an effort to avoid negative baggage associated with the CloudMinds name, its report said. ‘first two sources.
Wright Robotics markets their temperature scanners as designed in California. Advertising features include face recognition, data management, remote monitoring and, with its most advanced models, the ability to scan large numbers of people at places such as transportation hubs and shopping malls.
It is not clear what personal data the devices can collect. Wright Robotics and CloudMinds – which is based in the Cayman Islands but has the majority of its employees and revenue in China – have not responded to requests for opinion.
Supporting the devices, a testimonial on Wright Robotics’ homepage from “Sheila H.” reads, “We decided to get this one because their company is in California. I saw that there is a problem at other products with technology support or after-sales service because the retailers are in China. “
The U.S. Department of Commerce, which made a list of CloudMinds, declined to comment. SoftBank Group Corp declined to comment. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity.
Ambition
Temperature scanners are a far cry from CloudMinds’ desire to offer an “end-to-end cloud robot system”. Attempts to sell a modified version of SoftBank Pepper were hampered by technical difficulties and it was difficult for the company to find a market outside of China, Reuters previously reported.
The company was banned from exporting U.S. technology to China last year before being listed, and fired most U.S. employees. During a failed listing attempt in the United States, he identified his local unit as CloudMinds Technology Inc.
Films signed by its U.S. president, Karl Zhao, showed CloudMinds Technology Inc. to become Harix Cloud Robotics Inc. in July and then Wright Robotics Inc. in August. Zhao is listed on LinkedIn as the president of Wright Robotics.
The unit was in partnership with Sprint, which was owned by SoftBank until April closed the wireless carrier’s merger with T-Mobile US Inc. SoftBank maintains a stake in the unified entity.
Wright Robotics throws its scanners as “T-Mobile 4G LTE ready” and sells them through the T-Mobile IoT Marketplace.
T-Mobile USA declined to comment.
Weeks before the blacklist, but after Reuters reported its export restrictions, CloudMinds received a $ 1 million to $ 2 million loan under a pandemic aid program, Treasury data from August showed.
A spokesman for the lender, Silicon Valley Bank, declined to comment beyond specifying the bank’s “strong compliance program”. A spokesman for the Small Business Administration, which agrees to the loans, declined to consider individual cases.