China Aims to Expand the Use of Manufacturing Robots by 2025, According to an Action Plan Announced Last Week.
Manufacturing robot arms at a factory in Qingdao, Shandong Province, China on December 20, 2022. (Photo: Xinhua)
Robot Density – measured by the number of robots per 10,000 manufacturing workers – is a key metric for assessing the level of automation and smart manufacturing in a country.
According to the action plan released by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the country will aim to double its manufacturing robot density by 2025 compared to 2020, to promote high-quality economic and social development.
The plan calls for a focus on 10 key application areas, including manufacturing, agriculture, construction, energy, logistics, healthcare, elder care, education, commercial services, emergency response, and applications in extreme environments.
It also emphasizes efforts to build a collaborative innovation system for the production and application of robots, while accelerating development and promoting robot application standards. Accordingly, a series of industry-leading application enterprises, experience centers, and robot verification centers will be established.
According to the World Robotics Report 2022, China currently ranks fifth in robot density, with a ratio of 322 robots per 10,000 workers in the manufacturing sector, behind South Korea (1,000), Singapore (670), Japan (399), and Germany (397). This is the first time China has surpassed the United States (274) in this ranking.
