The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) has released its latest report on the use of robots in the manufacturing sector. According to the data, which was collected in 2021, Korea is the nation with the largest adoption of industrial robots. The survey indicates that Korea has 1,000 robots for every 10,000 manufacturing workers. When comparing adoption rates for China and America, the report indicates that China has installed 18% more robots per manufacturing worker than the U.S. When taking wage differences between the two countries into account, China has 12 times the rate of robot adoption than America.
In a recent article about the report, Robert D. Atkinson, founder and president of the ITIF, wrote: “When it comes to robot adoption, China appears to be in a class of its own, with its national and provincial governments committing massive amounts of money to subsidize adoption of robots and other automation technology. This is one reason why according to IFR, China has been the world's largest market for industrial robots for eight consecutive years. Some of this may be an overstatement due to company fraud in order to get subsidies from governments for installing robots, but it is unlikely that most is.”