Rise of the Robots

While more and more consumers enjoy the convenience of having a robot vacuum their home or take care of the lawn, it is in industrial applications that robotics have made the biggest impact. State-of-the-art manufacturing processes are unthinkable without industrial robots handling part of the workload, whether it’s handling, welding or assembling, which are three of the most common applications of industrial robots.

As the following chart, based on data from the International Robotics Federation (IFR) shows, the operational stock of industrial robots has more than tripled over the past decade, with more than five million robots in use across various industries by the end of 2025. According to the IFR, Asia leads the way in the shift to automated processes, accounting for 76 percent of global installations. With more than 350,000 new installations last year, China alone was responsible for 59 percent of the global total.