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The International Federation of Robotics is a nonprofit but industry-based trade group. Each year, the IFR issues a World Robotics Report, which costs way too much for me to get a copy. However, the report is accompanied by a useful press release with slides showing big-picture trends in the spread of robots around the world. Here are a few points that jumped out at me.

Here’s a figure showing the tripling in the total stock of industrial robots in the last decade, now reaching 4.6 million:
 

About half of those industrial robots are in China, with Japan and Korea also in the top five. The number of manufacturing jobs in China has been declining for several years now.
 

What are some of the shifting patterns in global robotics?

1) For a number of years now, the use of industrial robots has been primarily in two industries: electronics and cars. While those are still the two biggest users of industrial robots, they now account for less than half of the market and the “other industries” category is on the rise.

2) The IFR divides robots into two categories: the industrial robots just mentioned, but also a rising category of “service, mobile, and medical” robots. This includes, for example, robots that can autonomously drive around in warehouses and even pick items off shelves, robots for professional cleaning, search and rescue robots, and robots that can conduct laboratory tests or even assist with surgery.

3) Humanoid robots are not really a thing yet. Such robots are still in the R&D and prototype stage. As far as I can tell, the underlying issue is that robots are usually designed to carry out particular tasks, and when you do that, the best design for a specific task is usually not shaped like the human body.

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