Emerging markets have historically been viewed as low-cost manufacturing hubs competing on labor availability and scale. That model is now evolving as rising wages, demographic pressures, and labor shortages force manufacturers into higher-value industries. Increasingly, we see industrial competitiveness shifting toward automation intensity or how heavily a manufacturing system relies on automated machines and robots relative to human labor.
In our opinion, automation at scale is becoming the new manufacturing moat, driving capital toward countries and companies building massive robot fleets and data ecosystems, where large installed bases accelerate AI improvement, lower costs, and compound long‑term competitive advantages all while creating compelling new investment opportunities.
Robot density—the number of industrial robots deployed per 10,000 manufacturing workers—has emerged as a proxy for industrial sophistication and, in turn, automation intensity. At scale, China installed 354,200 industrial robots in 2025—more than nine times the number installed in the United States (Exhibit 1).
EXHIBIT 1
Annual Industrial Robot Installations, 2025
Note: Global installations reached a record ~603,000 units in 2025 (+11%); the operational stock reached 5.08 million (+9%). The US overtook Japan in 2025 to become the second-largest market. The India figure is approximate (“almost 10,500” per IFR).
Source: IFR World Robotics 2026 (published September 24, 2026)
Countries like India and South Korea are rapidly advancing automation. In India, Production Linked Incentive schemes offer financial incentives tied to increases in domestic manufacturing output or sales. In South Korea, the Smart Factory Program supports the digitization and automation of manufacturing—particularly for small- and medium‑sized enterprises—by subsidizing the adoption of connected production systems, sensors, robotics, and data analytics.
China, however, is the clear leader among its peers on scale, propelled, in part, by the “Made in China 2025” initiative’s manufacturing-with-technology focus. Launched in 2015, Made in China 2025 is a government strategy designed to upgrade China’s manufacturing sector by promoting advanced technologies, automation, and greater domestic production in key high‑tech industries.
China now accounts for roughly 59% of global industrial robot installations.1 As robotics evolves beyond fixed-function automation toward intelligent and adaptive systems, control of critical bottlenecks becomes increasingly strategic including precision reducers, servo motors, actuators, controllers, and sensors—the high-value components that determine robot performance and where supply remains concentrated. Larger installed robot bases further reinforce this advantage by generating real-world operational data that accelerates software training, improves autonomy, and drives faster iteration cycles.
While China dominates automation on scale, emerging markets also lead on intensity. South Korea has the world's highest robot density at 1,220 robots per 10,000 manufacturing employees, about 1.5 times second-ranked Singapore (818) and nearly four times the United States (307), while Taiwan (302) also ranks in the global top ten. China’s density of 166 is above the world average of 132 and up 17% year over year, though well below the leaders given the size of its manufacturing workforce.2 In our view, this underscores that the automation-driven manufacturing advantage is increasingly concentrated in emerging markets.
We believe countries and companies that deploy automation at scale will gain a structural manufacturing advantage, directing capital toward regions building large robot fleets, automation infrastructure, and supporting data ecosystems. China’s leadership in robot installations and humanoid shipments illustrates how scale can compound technological and cost advantages.
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Published on 5 November 2026.
1 IFR World Robotics 2026, As of September 2026.
2 IFR World Robotics 2025, As of April 2026.
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