Replace Humans, Adoption Of Industrial Robots In China Increases To 54 Percent

The use of humanoid robots increases in China (photo: dock. unsplash)

JAKARTA The adoption of robots in China has increased significantly since last year. This increase occurs when the country's population has experienced successive declines over the past three years.

Since 2022, China has experienced a population decline of up to 1.39 million. However, the adoption rate of its industrial robots has outpaced the number of declines. Launching from the South China Morning Post, China leads the world with 2.027 million active industrial robots.

The number of active robots is recorded in the 2025 edition of the International Robotics Federation (IFR). According to analysts, this large adoption of robots is the answer to the decline in labor. The hope is that Chinese manufacturing can remain superior.

There were more than 542,000 new robots installed worldwide last year and more than half of them are in Chinese factories. Last year, the installation increased 5 percent to 295,000 units. This is 54 percent of the total new industrial robots around the world.

In comparison, Japan is in second place with 44,500 new installations, followed by the United States with 34,200 units. With the massive adoption of robots, analysis believes that robots will replace a lot of human work in the future.

"It is an unavoidable trend that simpler and repeated tasks will be carried out by robots in the future," said Professor Gao Xudong of the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management.

Analysts believe that the manufacturing industry will continue to strengthen its competitiveness thanks to robots. China will face no difficulties even though its population will continue to decline over the next few years.

However, Gao Xudong reminded that China still needs many skilled talents. Experts like robotic maintenance technicians are essential to support its intelligent industry.

Projections show that by 2030, China will face a shortage of 50 million high-skilling workers. This skilled labor shortage is still a serious concern for the government.