Asus won’t say how it escaped the US router ban

This spring, the United States banned all future foreign-made consumer routers — effectively all future routers — unless their makers could 1) convince the US government that they weren’t a national security threat, and 2) submit “a detailed, time-bound plan to establish or expand manufacturing in the United States.”

As of September 9th, Asus now has an exemption from the ban, just in time to bring its first early Wi-Fi 8 routers here. But Asus has not publicly announced any plan to bring manufacturing to the US. It would not even confirm to The Verge whether it had submitted a US manufacturing plan.

Initially, Asus spokesperson JJ Guerrero forwarded the following statement to The Verge: “ASUS has submitted the required plan to the FCC and is working with trusted manufacturing partners to support our future networking product portfolio in the U.S.”

But when we repeatedly asked Asus to clarify whether that meant it had submitted a plan to manufacture equipment in the United States — as opposed to equipment that’s just for the United States — the company did not answer. We’ve been waiting over 12 days without clarification.

The US router ban is not about security, despite the government’s claims. The FCC doesn’t ask companies a single question about security to get an exemption from the ban; it’s more about where routers are made. Nor is the FCC carefully testing which products are safe and which might have security holes — it has granted Asus a blanket exemption on all future routers through March 2028.

Few consumer products are made in the United States these days for all kinds of economic reasons. Even a copy of the board game Monopoly is now difficult to manufacture domestically. It wouldn’t be surprising if Asus wants to avoid building factories here.

But if the US router ban is not about US manufacturing, and it’s not about security, what is it actually about? Why did the Trump administration suddenly give Asus a blanket exemption, and why did it give Netgear a similar blanket exemption back in April?

The FCC did not respond to a request for comment then, and it has not responded to our fact-check request for this story. Perhaps it’s simply satisfied that these companies aren’t making them in China; both Asus and Netgear claim they’re manufacturing in countries that are considered US allies, and Netgear additionally says that “we no longer procure internet-connected components from manufacturers in China, or entities owned or controlled by China.”

Publicly, both Asus and Netgear are using the US government’s exemptions as marketing tools. In April, Netgear even emailed existing customers to share the news that Netgear is a “trusted consumer router company” now. Asus now claims it passed a “rigorous cybersecurity review” and is now certified as a “Trusted Networking Equipment Brand” and listed as a “Trusted Consumer Router Vendor,” as if those were official terms.

But search results for “Trusted Networking Equipment Brand” and “Trusted Consumer Router Vendor” only point back to Asus’s own claims — not the federal government.

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KCC Manufacturing And Transaera Partner To Scale U.S. Production Of High-Efficiency Cooling Systems

KCC Manufacturing and Transaera have formed a manufacturing and engineering partnership to scale U.S. production of Transaera’s next-generation dedicated outdoor air systems, which use Metal Organic Framework materials to remove moisture before cooling.

The systems will be manufactured at KCC’s employee-owned facilities in Kentucky, with KCC responsible for the equipment cabinet, implementation support for Transaera’s proprietary controls, systems integration, and the platform’s domestic production capacity. Multiple units have already been manufactured, with additional systems in production. 

The partnership is intended to address one of the more energy-intensive aspects of commercial building cooling: humidity control.

Traditional packaged rooftop equipment often manages humidity by cooling the air well below the required indoor temperature and then reheating it. That process consumes energy during both cooling and reheating.

Conventional desiccant systems can avoid that cycle but require significant energy to regenerate, or dry out, the desiccant so it can be reused.

Transaera’s approach uses Metal Organic Frameworks, or MOFs, engineered to release captured moisture at much lower regeneration temperatures, allowing the system to combine desiccant-based moisture removal with an all-electric heat-pump architecture.

The system is also designed to fit within existing rooftop equipment footprints, potentially making adoption easier for commercial building owners replacing or upgrading conventional systems.

Transaera said its platform has demonstrated approximately 40% energy savings compared with conventional packaged direct-expansion-only systems and has achieved more than twice the current federal minimum efficiency standard for moisture removal. 

KCC’s role centers on turning Transaera’s materials technology into equipment that can be produced, installed, controlled, and serviced at commercial scale.

The company adapted its existing dedicated outdoor air system cabinet for Transaera’s first-generation unit and is now working with Transaera’s engineering organization on the next-generation cabinet.

KCC is also supporting implementation of the electronics associated with Transaera’s proprietary control sequences and integrating the desiccant and refrigeration portions of the system so they operate together.

The arrangement allows Transaera to expand production without building its own cabinet fabrication and manufacturing infrastructure. 

The production partnership follows growing commercial activity for Transaera.

In May 2026, Transaera announced a multi-year collaboration with Amazon to expand deployment of its high-efficiency heat pump technology following a six-month field trial at an Amazon logistics facility operating in hot and humid conditions. 

Warehouse, logistics, commercial, and multifamily facilities in high-humidity climates represent potential markets for the technology because moisture removal can account for a significant portion of their cooling load.

The companies believe lowering the temperature needed to regenerate the desiccant could improve the economics of all-electric humidity control while reducing energy consumption.

Under the partnership, Transaera will continue developing the MOF-based sorbent materials and overall system architecture, while KCC will use its established dedicated outdoor air manufacturing lines to build and ship finished systems.

Additional units are already in production, and the companies expect manufacturing volumes to grow as adoption of high-efficiency, all-electric humidity-control systems expands across commercial and multifamily properties. 

KCC Companies was founded in 1977 and is a 100% employee-owned company headquartered in Jeffersontown, Kentucky.

The company employs more than 1,000 people and operates approximately 800,000 square feet of manufacturing space across four facilities in Jeffersontown and Simpsonville, Kentucky.

Its products include dedicated outdoor air systems, air handling equipment, roof curbs and adapters, dehumidification technology, and energy recovery systems for commercial buildings and specialized applications.

KCC has operated as an employee stock ownership plan since 2008 and ranks as the 13th-largest private company in Louisville, according to the announcement. 

Transaera was founded in 2017 by MIT engineers and materials scientists and is headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts.

The company’s technology applies MOF materials to cooling and dehumidification systems, with the KCC partnership providing a pathway for scaling those systems through established U.S. manufacturing infrastructure.

KEY QUOTES:

“Materials science wins in a lab. Products win on a roof, and getting from one to the other is a manufacturing problem. Transaera solved the hard chemistry. Our job was to put that core inside a cabinet that can be built repeatably, controlled reliably, and serviced by a normal technician, and to build it here. That is the work that turns a breakthrough into something a building owner can actually buy.”

Joel Strieter, President Of KCC Manufacturing

“We were never going to scale this by building cabinets ourselves. KCC has been making dedicated outdoor air systems for decades, and they brought a production platform, a controls organization, and real manufacturing capacity to a company our size. Having that behind us in the United States is what lets us commit to customers on volume and on timing.”

Sorin Grama, CEO And Co-Founder Of Transaera

“Latent load is where a lot of rooftop equipment quietly loses. The conventional answer is to overcool and reheat. The conventional desiccant answer trades that penalty for a regeneration penalty. What makes the MOF approach interesting is that it removes moisture at a much lower regeneration temperature, which is what puts an all-electric path to humidity control genuinely in reach. Our role has been to make sure the system around that core performs the way the material does.”

Kevin Muldoon, Director Of Research & Development At KCC

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