HOW 1X TECHNOLOGIES WAS FOUNDED ON SPEED AND RELIABILITY
American Manufacturing Flexing Its Muscle Behind AI & Robotics
1X Technologies was born from more than two decades of hands-on American manufacturing excellence — a foundation that runs far deeper than any single industry.
The defining spirit of the 1X brand — our signature Royal Blue aesthetic and our iconic “Humanoid robot flexing its muscle” motif — traces back long before our corporate founding. It began in Michigan at Dundee High School. Despite having a student body of just 400 at the time, Dundee boasts one of the best wrestling programs in America, standing as the only public school of its size consistently ranked in the national top 50. As an All-American and state champion who laid the foundation for that elite national dynasty, our founder, Brandon Jonseck, stood apart with his signature flexing pose, captured in Dundee’s Royal Blue and white in his state championship photo that still graces the school’s halls today.
That elite competitive drive and literal representation of physical leverage, stamina, and raw power evolved from the mat directly into a relentless work ethic that would eventually shape his approach to the manufacturing floor.
That same competitive fire and belief in American manufacturing excellence led to an early, unconventional vision. In 2005, at age 22, the founder entered the wire and cable industry. While selling to major industrial customers, he began studying firsthand how critical high-performance wire, cable, connectors, and harnesses were to every form of automation and motion control. Trade shows brought direct conversations with leaders from Coca-Cola, Boston Dynamics, Belden, ABB, and other pioneers in robotics and industrial systems. At the exact same time, the gaming world was exploding with new graphics and intelligence — the same world that would later birth AI dominance and DeepMind’s breakthroughs.
While Facebook was still brand new, he taught himself basic coding and website building, watching the digital and physical worlds rapidly converge. The realization was clear: the next leap in technology would not be software alone. It would be intelligent machines that could move, sense, and act in the real world — and the invisible “nervous system” of wire, cable, and electromechanical components would be what made it all possible. That insight became the foundational thesis for 1X Technologies.
The technological vision first took shape in 2010 at Stanford Engineering, where Jonseck engaged in postgraduate study focused on sustainable energy conversion and storage, specifically lithium-ion battery technology, and where he conceptualized 1X for the first time.
Undertaken right alongside the Tesla IPO — years before the Model S release and the global pivot toward advanced batteries and solar — this early foresight built a conceptual hardware foundation that he continued to scale during his studies at Harvard University.
His multidisciplinary approach expanded further through continuing medical education at the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Medical School, driving early Robotics & AI Equipment Medical R&D while concurrently coaching for Dave Schultz / Sunkist Kids / Penn Wrestling club.
In March 2014, Jonseck joined the advisory board of an award-winning advanced electric motors company. This role sharpened his expertise in the critical internal components of electromotive technology — copper coils, winding wire, wiring harnesses, magnets, and connectors — knowledge that would become the backbone of 1X’s full-stack manufacturing strategy.
Company operations officially launched in February 2015 with the creation of our Facebook page and the start of all day-to-day activities. Our very first public post, on February 27, 2015, highlighted MIT’s inFORM project — the groundbreaking “living clay” shape-changing table that enabled real-time teleoperation, tactile AI, and embodied robotics, allowing distant users to physically interact across hundreds of miles. By choosing this as our opening statement to the world, 1X declared from day one that we were founded on advanced AI and robotics.
On May 15, 2015 — just two weeks before his Harvard graduation — Jonseck officially incorporated 1X Technologies LLC in the United States.
That very same day we received our very first order: a custom robotics hardware solution. We produced and shipped the finished product in just six days, delivering it to the customer by May 21, 2015 — faster than many competitors could ship standard items from stock. That lightning-fast custom delivery became the defining moment that gave birth to the entire 1X Speed and Reliability ethos.
From day one, the company operated as a manufacturing-first enterprise focused on breakthrough electrical and electronic systems for the emerging robotics and AI era. Later that same year, while completing his MBA in Finance at Patten University in Oakland, he guided 1X through its critical first year of operations in the East Bay.
Rapid Expansion, Eye Opening Innovation, and the Robotics Boom
From our very first order in 2015 — high-performance robotics hardware for a major industry leader — 1X immediately expanded to serve Disney Imagineering, Google, Microsoft, and NVIDIA data centers and robotics. By 2016 we were publicly advertising advanced humanoid robotics solutions featuring the Google | Boston Dynamics Atlas platform under the 1X brand.
In early 2018 we released our landmark “Eye Opening” video series, which introduced our highly distinctive bare-metal dexterous robotic hands and dynamic blue-light orbiting aesthetic. That same creative period produced the “Test Our Metal” motif. These works, together with our now-iconic flexing humanoid, established 1X’s visual language in robotics long before others entered the market.
The Reindustrialization Philosophy and Robotics R&D Acceleration
In January 2019, Jonseck published a widely read review of Harvard Business School’s Producing Prosperity: Why America Needs a Manufacturing Renaissance — a book that had become his standard recommendation for every manufacturing client considering the return of offshore operations to American soil. The review distilled the book’s three core themes into an operational philosophy for 1X Technologies: rebuild American manufacturing capability, protect the industrial commons as the platform for all innovation, and recognize that management and policy decisions — not invisible market forces — determine whether domestic manufacturing thrives or dies.
In March 2019, 1X Technologies CEO published the widely read article “Trumped Up: U.S. Manufacturing Surges Behind A.I. Robotics Boon,” featuring the tag line “You never thought you’d see U.S. manufacturing flexing its muscle again. Think again, thanks to AI & Robotics.” Within days, the Unicode Consortium — whose board includes major 1X customers such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon — updated the global robotics imagery standard to include the flexing mechanical arm (🦾), directly mirroring our original 2019 creative expression. 1X later secured federal copyright protection for the flexing humanoid patriotic motif.
That same year, 1X executed an intensive, company-wide research and development acceleration — completing a sweeping program of accredited, third-party-certified training across the entire technical stack of humanoid robotics and AI infrastructure.
Working directly with the world’s leading industrial robotics and automation suppliers — including ABB, Belden, Corning, Leviton, ProLabs, and CommScope — Jonseck immersed the company in the exact disciplines that would be required to design, manufacture, and deploy full robotics systems.
The training spanned machine Building, harmonic drive actuation physics (the “muscles and joints” of all robots), AI-driven digital twin simulation software, machine building and embodied AI, zero-latency fiber optic interconnects for AI GPU clusters, 360-degree audio-visual perception systems for human-robot interaction, power distribution and thermal management for autonomous systems, and the automotive supply chain architecture that Morgan Stanley projects will anchor the multi-trillion-dollar humanoid robotics market, and the many other robotics and machine markets that 1X is set to lead in.
These were not theoretical exercises. They were hands-on certifications from the companies that build the world’s most advanced industrial systems, establishing a foundation of deep, vertically integrated expertise years before such capabilities became industry buzzwords.
Scaling Through Crisis and Beyond
In 2020, 1X leveraged its manufacturing infrastructure to supply critical PPE and textile solutions during the global pandemic. That same year we formally added “Electrical and Electronic Equipment Manufacturing” to our Dun & Bradstreet profile — a classification that aligns with IEEE standards defining robotics, including humanoid and quadruped systems, as electrical and electronic equipment.
In 2022, 1X designed and manufactured one of the most technically demanding projects in the company’s history: the largest floating solar array in North America. This landmark achievement required the full application of our wire and cable expertise, power conversion engineering, and precision systems integration capability in a marine environment.
It stands as proof that the same engineering discipline that powers advanced robotics and AI infrastructure also powers the renewable energy systems that will sustain American industry for the next century. That same year, we initiated a multi-million credit facility with Bank of America, predicated on scaled EEE, robotics, and consumer electronics manufacturing.
From the moment of incorporation, our operational ethos has been built on Speed and Reliability. This is not just a slogan — it is the core ethos of the 1X brand. It was born on May 15, 2015 with that very first custom robotics order and is expressed in our 2017 copyrighted work “1X Lightning Speed Vortex,” our 2018 flagship brand film “1X means Speed and Reliability!,” and our foundational registered trademark “Because You Require Quality, Quickly!®”
This promise — delivering complex, custom solutions in days or weeks, not months — has been kept for over a decade. It is the reason customers across industries turn to 1X when they need quality, speed, and total reliability. Alongside designing and overseeing the production of our proprietary systems in the United States, 1X operates as an authorized global master distributor. We connect customers worldwide with highly specialized wire, cable, robotics, and electronic solutions.
Trusted by the World’s Most Demanding Organizations
For more than a decade, this commitment to speed and reliability has enabled 1X Technologies to serve the world’s leading organizations with proprietary components and complete systems that meet the most demanding requirements. Our clients and partners have included Disney, Meta, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Tesla, ABB, Milwaukee Tool, Amphenol, the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. From Walt Disney Imagineering to NASA space-flight hardware, from AI data center infrastructure to critical defense systems, 1X has delivered quality, quickly, for the organizations that cannot tolerate failure.
This relentless execution transformed 1X from a startup into an industrial powerhouse. Fueled entirely by organic growth, we built the company to millions in sustained profits and successfully processed tens of millions in custom orders. By securing our position as a critical supplier for the booming AI and robotics sectors, we cemented a financial trajectory with multi-billion-dollar market projections. We proved that an American company, running on pure manufacturing muscle and speed, can dominate the global stage.
Mastering the Physics: Cables Are the Robot
Our American manufacturing foundation powers everything we do.
One of our earliest 2018 works visually demonstrated a core technological philosophy: cables literally morph, assemble, and transform into the robot itself. Cables are not merely components — they are the living nervous system and structural core of advanced robotics.
Robotics and AI hardware (And increasingly software) remain our flagship focus, where our deep knowledge across the entire technology stack — from foundational components to finished platforms — delivers unmatched performance and reliability.
This same platform drives solutions across consumer electronics, NASA space-flight hardware, solar photovoltaics, underwater IoT infrastructure, and submarine cable systems.
Every product — from high-flex cable assemblies, AI driven consumer electronics, to complete integrated robotics solutions — is designed and produced under 1X specifications in the United States. In an era when many companies outsource the hard parts, we believe true innovation comes from mastering the physics: heat, friction, fatigue, inertia, and reliability.
The Converged Industry: Robotics Manufacturers Are Wire & Cable Companies — And Vice Versa
Wire and cable is the essential foundational component of every robot. It is quite literally the nervous system that makes the entire machine work.
It is also the number one failure point in robotics — responsible for more costly downtime than any other component. Research consistently shows that over 85% of robotic cell downtime is caused by cable or dress-pack failures. That is why the industry long ago stopped treating wire and cable as a separate, secondary product.
Every major robot manufacturer in the world now designs, manufactures, and sells high-flex robotics cables, torsion-rated dress packs, charging cables, harnesses, and motor windings as official, native subsystems of their robots.
ABB offers three levels of DressPacks — including the advanced LeanID system that routes cables inside the upper arm and wrist for protection against weld spatter, heat, and collisions. KUKA sells standardized family-wide dress packages with 10-minute exchange times and internal routing from base to wrist. FANUC equips its ARC Mate series with the industry’s largest 57mm hollow wrist, allowing full integration of torch hoses, seam-tracking cables, and air lines directly through the arm. Yaskawa ships factory-fitted Dresspack Handling and Media Packages with Ethernet, Profinet, and compressed air lines pre-installed. Universal Robots offers complete UR-specific dress pack kits through its official Marketplace. Boston Dynamics sells the Spot Charger, dedicated charging cable, and self-charging Spot Dock as standard accessories.
At the same time, the leading wire and cable companies have moved aggressively in the opposite direction. IGUS, once known primarily for Chainflex cables, now sells complete ReBeL collaborative robots, gantry systems, and delta robots and even has a humanoid robot of their own called Iggy Rob.
IGUS launched its first humanoid robots on April 29, 2025 — just weeks before 1X Technologies publicly introduced its full robotics systems on June 1, 2025. At the same time, Leoni, a global leader in energy and data management, developed the ORION patient-positioning robot for radiotherapy directly from its deep expertise in wiring harnesses and energy supply systems.
Helukabel markets complete “Robotic Automation Ecosystems” and engineers custom dress pack systems with spring-loaded retraction, impact protectors, and steel mounting plates. LAPP and SAB both produce torsion-rated robotic cables and integrated connection solutions specifically engineered for articulated robots and gantries.
The founder of 1X recognized this convergence early. At trade shows in the early days, he met directly with engineers and executives from ABB, KUKA, FANUC, Yaskawa, and the major cable companies. They were all discussing the same challenges — high-flex cables that could survive millions of cycles, dress packs that protected those cables, and the need for complete system reliability. Even then, it was clear they were all in the same industry, solving the same problems. That early recognition became the foundation of 1X Technologies.
Many of these companies on both sides are effectively wire and cable manufacturers themselves. They produce or heavily engineer these critical components in-house — including forming copper coils for motors, creating complex harness assemblies, and designing mechanical dress packs — because those parts are too expensive, too technically demanding, and too essential to performance to leave to third parties.
There were never lines between “robotics company” and “wire & cable company”, and any perceived lines have completely disappeared. The visible wire and cable product is only the tip of the iceberg. Below the surface lies the massive submerged mass of dress packs, drag chains, actuators, motors, controllers, and full robotic platforms. The most successful players in the industry now control the entire stack — from the copper and connectors all the way to the finished robot — because they understand that the cable is not an accessory. It is the foundation.
1X Technologies started exactly where the industry begins: with the wire and cable that powers and protects every robot. The company has simply followed the same natural evolution that every serious company in this space has already taken — from the essential foundational component to complete, integrated robotics systems.
This is how modern robotics is built.
Flexing American Muscle Into the Future
The iconic flexing humanoid is more than a logo — it represents American manufacturing flexing its muscle once again. From the earliest recognition that wire and cable would power the robotics revolution, through a decade of building the full systems the industry now demands, 1X Technologies has stayed true to its roots: delivering stronger, faster, and more resilient American-made solutions.
Today, our U.S.-based operations continue to deliver on that original 2015 vision with rapid iteration, superior quality, and real excellence. We are proud to be an American company, built on authentic manufacturing know-how, serving the customers who demand the very best.
The future of high-tech hardware isn’t something we wait for. It’s something we build — Because You Require Quality, Quickly!®