China is increasingly dominating the world in robotic manufacturing

In the great, humming workshops of the world, a new workforce is clocking in, and China is increasingly dominating the West.

According to a report recently released by the International Federation of Robotics, the factories of China are now home to more than two million industrial robots, a silent legion that outnumbers the automated populations of every other nation combined.

This is not a subtle shift but a seismic one, a deliberate refashioning of the very nature of work.

Last year alone, Chinese factories integrated nearly 300,000 new robots into their assembly lines. To put that figure in a global context, that single nation’s annual installation was greater than that of the rest of the world put together, and dwarfed the 34,000 new robots installed in the United States.

The world’s workshop is methodically replacing its hands with steel and silicon.

This transformation is the fruit of a long-nurtured ambition, a national strategy that began in earnest a decade ago with Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” campaign.

The government marshaled public capital, directed policy, and opened a spigot of low-interest loans from state-controlled banks, creating a tide that lifted the domestic robotics industry.

The result is a virtuous cycle for Chinese manufacturing: the country is not only the world’s most voracious consumer of robots but is now also becoming its primary producer.

China’s share of global robot manufacturing surged to a third of the world’s supply last year, unseating Japan, the previous leader.

“You can see how well that strategy worked out; without a strategy, a country is always at a disadvantage,” observed Susanne Bieller, general secretary of the robotics federation.

The data bears her out. For the first time last year, the majority of robots installed in China—nearly three-fifths—were also made in China, a milestone of self-sufficiency.

The implications ripple far beyond factory floors. This automation drive is a key engine behind China’s commanding position as the world’s manufacturing powerhouse.

By the start of this year, its factories were producing nearly a third of all manufactured goods worldwide, an output greater than that of the United States, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Britain combined.

As technology renders these factories ever more efficient, they can produce more with potentially fewer workers, altering the global calculus of labor and capital.

The frontier of this automation race is now shifting to the next generation of machines: humanoid robots.

A thriving ecosystem of startups, like Hangzhou-based Unitree Robotics, has emerged, buoyed by the same state support that propelled the industrial robot sector.

Unitree has managed to price its basic humanoid models at around $6,000, a fraction of the cost of comparable American robots, signaling a potential new wave of accessible automation.

Yet, for all its dominance in industrial robotics, China still faces hurdles in this new arena.

Analysts note that the top versions of many key components for advanced humanoids, from specialized sensors to semiconductors, are still made in longtime industrial leaders like Germany and Japan.

“If you were to assemble a really top-notch humanoid robot, it would be almost completely non-China-made,” said Lian Jye Su, a chief analyst at Omdia. “Maybe it would have one or two Chinese components, but by and large the entire system would be very international.”

What China possesses, however, is an unparalleled integration of its artificial intelligence industry with its manufacturing ambitions. While other nations explore AI for creative or analytical tasks, China is deploying it with relentless focus on the factory floor.

“Companies in China are using AI to swoop in and say which machines are doing great and which are a little off,” said Cameron Johnson, a supply chain consultant in Shanghai. Outside of China, he added, “people aren’t looking at it as a manufacturing tool, at least not yet, and not how the Chinese are.”

So, as the robotic carts continue their silent, efficient journeys along the assembly lines in Ningbo and Shenzhen, the message to the rest of the world is clear.

The future of manufacturing is being written not just in blueprints and code, but in national policy and political will. That story is being authored most decisively in China.