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 the three most common applications of newly installed industrial robots in 2022.

As the following chart, based on data from the International Robotics Federation (IFR) shows, the operational stock of industrial robots has tripled over the past decade, with almost four million robots in use across various industries by the end of 2022. According to the IFR, Asia leads the way in the shift to automated processes, with China in particular installing industrial robots at breakneck speed. In 2022, the country accounted for more than 50 percent of newly installed industrial robots worldwide, quickly catching up with industry leaders South Korea and Japan, who had the highest density of robots installed per 10,000 workers in the manufacturing industry in 2021.