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Total installations of industrial robots in the U.S. automotive sector increased by 10.7%, reaching 13,700 units in 2024, according to preliminary results reported by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR).

“The United States has one of the most automated car industries in the world. The ratio of robots to factory workers ranks fifth, tied with Japan and Germany and ahead of China,” says Takayuki Ito, President of the International Federation of Robotics. “This is a great achievement of modernization. However, in other key areas of manufacturing automation, the US lags behind its competitors.”

The majority of industrial robots deployed in the U.S. are imports from overseas, as there are few robot manufacturers producing there. Globally, 70% of robots are produced by four countries: Japan, China, Germany and South Korea.

Within this group, Chinese manufacturers are the most dynamic, with production for their huge domestic market more than tripling from 2019 to 2023. This puts them in second place after Japan and is driven by the country’s national robotics strategy. Its manufacturing industry installed about 280,000 units per year between 2021 and 2023, compared to a total of 34,300 installations in the United States in 2024.

In China, robotics and automation are penetrating all levels of production, resulting in a robot density of 470 robots per 10,000 employees in manufacturing—the third highest in the world, surpassing Germany and Japan in 2023.

China’s National Development and Reform Commission in March 2025 established a state-backed venture capital fund focused on robotics, AI and cutting-edge innovation. The long-term fund is expected to attract nearly 1 trillion yuan (US$138 billion) in capital from local governments and the private sector over the next 20 years. This initiative aims to continue China’s technology-driven manufacturing:

The U.S. ranks tenth among the world’s most automated manufacturing countries with a robot density of 295 robots per 10,000 employees. The country’s automation is heavily concentrated in the automotive sector with about 40% of all new industrial robot installations in 2024.

This is followed by the metal and machinery industry with 3,800 units, representing a market share of 11%. Installations in the US electrical and electronics industry has a market share of 9% with 2,900 units sold.

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The partners stated in a press release that the collaboration addresses urgent manufacturing challenges, including a shortage of skilled welders, increasing part variability, and demand for faster lead times. The solution is built for complex, high mix welding environments, enabling manufacturers to automate without the need for traditional programming.

The companies said this partnership expands their long-standing relationship, ensuring that AI-powered robotics and intelligent positioning technology work seamlessly together to improve accuracy and accelerate throughput in industrial automation.

“ALM is the perfect hardware partner for Path as we expand across North America,” said Andy Lonsberry, CEO and Co-Founder of Path Robotics. “ALM’s teams and products are best in class and known across the industries we serve.”

Industries including heavy equipment, trailer manufacturing, energy, aerospace, and agriculture face increasing pressure to deliver high-quality, customized products at scale.

These sectors face common hurdles: shortages of skilled welders, high part variability, and demand for faster lead times. Traditional automation solutions often fall short in these complex, variable environments.

The ALM-Path partnership offers a solution that addresses these pain points with intelligent automation designed for high-mix, multi-pass welding with extreme part variability. The combined system, based on Path Robotics AW3 and ALM Positioners, intelligently adapts to each part and weld path without reprogramming, making automation viable where it previously wasn’t.

“Path’s technology is changing the way manufacturers view automation,” said Pat Pollock, President and CEO of ALM Positioners, Inc. “Their AI-driven solutions allow manufacturers to take advantage of the quality, throughput, and consistency of robotic welding, without all the programming and application challenges associated with traditional robotic automation.”

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“The board believes listing ABB Robotics as a separate company will optimize both companies’ ability to create customer value, grow and attract talent,” said ABB Chairman Peter Voser. He says both companies will benefit from a more focused governance and capital allocation. “ABB will continue to focus on its long-term strategy, building on its leading positions in electrification and automation,” Voser said.

ABB Robotics provides intelligent automation solutions to a global customer base to solve operational challenges including labor shortages and the need to operate more sustainably. It’s robotics platforms include autonomous mobile robots, software and AI combined with proven domain expertise to a broad range of traditional and new industry segments. More than 80 percent of the company’s products are software or AI enabled.

Morten Wierod, CEO of ABB, says there are limited business and technology synergies between the ABB Robotics business and other ABB divisions, with different demand and market characteristics. “We believe this change will support value creation in both the ABB Group and in the separately listed pure play robotics business,” he said.

ABB said in a press release that the new robotics company will be listed with a strong capital structure, is well invested with a solid cash flow profile and operates through its local-for-local set-up with regional manufacturing hubs in Sweden, China and the U.S.

The robotics division has about 7,000 employees, with 2024 revenues of $2.3 billion, which made up about 7% of ABB Group revenues.

If shareholders vote in favor of the proposal, the spin-off is planned to be done through a share distribution. ABB Ltd.’s shareholders will receive shares in the company to be listed (its working name is ABB Robotics) as a dividend in-kind in proportion to their existing shareholding.

In the first quarter of 2026, the Machine Automation division—which is currently combined with ABB Robotics to form the Robotics & Discrete Automation business—will become a part of the Process Automation business, where ABB says its other divisions will benefit from technology synergies for software and control technologies. The Machine Automation business holds a leading position in the high-end segment for solutions based on PLCs, IPCs, servo motion, industrial transport systems and vision and software.

The intention is for the new robotics company to start trading as a separately listed company during the second quarter of 2026.

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Thirty-one percent of the 434 survey respondents predicted EV output would increase by more than 10%. A further 44% said production would grow in 2025 by up to 10%. Meanwhile, only 21% of respondents believed EV production would either remain static (8%) or decline (13%) through 2025.

“This year’s survey found that overall, automotive manufacturing professionals are optimistic about EV production growth in 2025, but unsure about reaching 100 percent electric vehicle production timetables due to factors now often beyond the factory environment,” said Joerg Reger, managing director of ABB’s automotive business Line. “There’s strong evidence that EV manufacturing capabilities are now considerably improved, and significant change has taken place in terms of introducing new production technology as well as upskilling workforces. ABB Robotics has made wide-scale changes to our own robotic and automation portfolio to support our customers and drive this transformation forward at pace.”

Despite the optimistic EV forecast from manufacturing experts, there was a decline in confidence about meeting proposed EV deadlines. When asked whether 100% EV production was achievable to meet regional deadlines set between 2030-2040, 31% believed this was an impossible target compared to 27% the previous year and just 18% in 2022. Overall, 65% were skeptical about achieving full EV production within the 2030-2040 timeframe.

Further examination of the downturn in confidence found that the main barriers were now deemed to be ‘outside the factory’ with levels of consumer demand and confidence in charging infrastructure. The survey also indicated that manufacturing experts are predicting strong growth in hybrid powertrains during 2025, with 67% of those surveyed believing that plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) production would grow and 20% forecasting that production would increase by over 10%. Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) figures were equally optimistic with 62% of those surveyed expecting output to grow in 2025.

“Hybrid passenger vehicle production remains buoyant with the global manufacturing community expecting to produce more cars in 2025. These results support the survey’s main findings that the overall pace of EV adoption is currently not fast enough to reach some of the upcoming legislative deadlines for a 100% electric future,” said Daniel Harrison, chief analyst for Automotive Manufacturing Solutions.

“Within the manufacturing environment, the production of numerous powertrains across several model lines can create considerable complexity and additional cost, which has been pinpointed in our previous surveys produced in partnership with ABB Robotics.”

Automotive has traditionally been the backbone of the robotics industry. In 2020, however, the Association for Advancing Automation (A3) found that yearly orders of robots for non-automotive sectors surpassed automotive robot orders for the first time in North America. Fast forward to last year, automotive orders declined 15% in 2024 compared to 2023 in North America, according to A3. A3 said it was optimistic automotive orders will bounce back by the end of 2025.

“I think there is room to grow in automotive,” Alex Shikany, executive vice president of A3, recently told The Robot Report. “What we saw over the last two years, with the lower quantities of orders, had a lot more to do with manufacturers pivoting their strategies with regard to not getting the performance they thought they would get out of all their electric ambitions.”

Robotics impact on EVs

When questioned about how well manufacturing companies are embracing robotics, new OEMs, startups, and pop-up manufacturers were the leading adopters with 63% investing “very well” or “quite well.” This was matched by 63% of technology specialists investing “very well” or “quite well” in robotics, leading all other manufacturing groups.

In third place were legacy OEMs with 53% investing “very well” or “quite well” in robotics, the survey found. Referencing the previous survey results, new OEMs, startups, and pop-up manufacturers who were embracing robotics and automation “very well” or “quite well” dropped from 66% in 2023 to 63% in 2024, indicating a slight decline in perceived adoption.

According to the survey, autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) exhibited the highest expected increase, with 25% predicting a strong increase and 39% expecting a slight increase. Collaborative robots (cobots) were in second place with 22% predicting a strong increase and 35% expecting a slight increase, followed by articulated robots in third place with 19% predicting a strong increase and 39% expecting a slight increase.

Click the image to enlarge it.

Yes, humanoids also made the list. According to the survey, humanoids were cited to strongly increase by 27% of Asian respondents, compared to only 5% in Europe and just 2% in North America. Several humanoid manufacturers are testing with automakers, including Apptronik, Boston Dynamics, Figure, and UBTech, to name a few. Of course, Tesla is also developing humanoids.

UBTech this week released a video showcasing a swarm of humanoids performing a variety of tasks and working together inside a Zeekr smart factory in China. You can watch the video below.

According to the survey, 54% of respondents see anticipated high initial costs as the greatest obstacle to smart factory implementation.

This story was originally published on The Robot Report.

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ABB has announced it will invest $120 million in the U.S. to expand the production capacity of its low voltage electrification products.

The Zurich-based industrial products manufacturer says investment will enable it to meet increasing demand from customers in a wide range of key growth industries, including data centers, buildings and utilities.

The move is expected to create 50 new jobs at a new advanced manufacturing facility in Selmer, Tenn., and will double the size of its existing manufacturing site in Senatobia, Miss., creating 200 new jobs.

“Demand is increasing steadily for advanced electrification technologies, driven by growth in key sectors including data centers and utilities. Today’s announcement will support our future growth in the U.S., ABB’s largest global market,” said Morten Wierod, ABB’s Chief Executive Officer.

As part of the commitment, ABB will invest $80 million to build a new, 320,000 sq. ft. facility in Selmer, replacing an existing ABB Selmer operation. This is expected to increase production capacity by more than 50%. The new factory will produce essential electrical distribution equipment for large-scale industrial and technology-driven facilities, including data centers, factories and high-rise residential and office spaces where consistent, high-quality power is critical. ABB’s busway and bus plug products help businesses simplify their power distribution, supporting seamless expansion or reconfiguration without the need for extensive rewiring. The new facility, expected to open in Q4 2026, will add 50 new skilled jobs.

ABB will also invest $40 million to double the footprint of its Senatobia facility to meet increasing demand for advanced low voltage circuit breakers from customers across North America. When the new facility opens in Q2 2026, the 200 new jobs will increase the workforce in the Senatobia facility to more than 1,000.

In the past three years, ABB has invested more than $500 million in its US business, including opening a new $100 million manufacturing facility and innovation laboratory for industrial electric drives in New Berlin, Wisconsin in October 2024. A new $40 million ABB factory will open in Albuquerque, New Mexico in April 2025, to manufacture the latest technologies for power grid hardening and resilience.

All new ABB sites showcase the latest technologies for sustainable operations, bringing together ABB’s digital and renewable energy solutions to increase energy efficiency and reduce emissions.

ABB’s US revenue was close to $9 billion in 2024, accounting for about 27 percent of the ABB Group total. With approximately 17,000 employees across the US, ABB has nearly 40 manufacturing, distribution, and operational facilities across 20 states including nine major R&D centers, with a presence in all 50 states. Today, approximately 75-80 percent of the products ABB sells in the US are manufactured in the U.S.

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Many designers are familiar with the challenges associated with creating electrically conductive tracks across shapes with curved and complex surfaces. Let’s look at some of these issues and the drawbacks of conventional approaches in depth.

A constant compromise?

Product makers often complain that they cannot place components, such as switches or sensors, where they’d ideally like them. This is often due to constraints that limit connectivity options: a physical wire won’t fit or is too heavy, for example. Additionally, surfaces may need to be functionalized with antennas or frequency-selective components. These issues are particularly acute on complex or curved surfaces.

Some engineers will have explored traditional printed electronics, such as laser direct structuring (LDS). LDS uses nanoparticle-loaded polymers to create conductive links on curved and complex surfaces. However, the very high cost of these polymers means this technique is generally only feasible for small-scale components — think smartphone parts. Even where LDS is economically viable, you must make the entire part out of the specialized polymer, which may not be ideal for your use case.

For those looking to create conductive tracks across larger curved surfaces, the solution has generally been to shape a film containing the conductive tracks around the surface. However, anyone who’s tried this will know it’s a challenging process, with particular risks when joining conductors. It’s generally also limited to simpler shapes, laborious, and requires a highly skilled worker.

Then, you add in broader challenges. The high cost of the tooling required for traditional manufacturing techniques means flexibility is a luxury most cannot afford. Once you commit to a design, making changes is expensive, and the ability to produce multiple product variants is limited. Moreover, convoluted, multi-step logistics and production processes are typically required to build and assemble discrete parts into the final product. In addition to higher costs, all of this handling increases the risk of damage to components during production.

Put together, these issues will likely impact your products in various ways. Because of manufacturing limitations, you may struggle to create the form or function you want. You’ll lack the freedom to alter designs or create lots of product variants once you’ve tooled up. You could be experiencing high rates of damage and failure during manufacturing or simply be paying high costs due to complex logistics and handling. Where technology needs to be adaptable to competitive and perhaps hostile environments, these traditional manufacturing methods can be dangerously slow to respond.

A new way to create conductive tracks on complex and curved surfaces

Research engineers at Q5D have been developing a new set of manufacturing techniques to address these and other challenges. The techniques use a high-accuracy gantry robot to form conductive tracks as narrow as 100 microns onto large, complex, or conformal surfaces that typically form part of larger electrical devices. Crucially, the approaches can be applied to virtually any type and shape of substrate. This includes large objects, such as antennas or frequency-selective shielding in aircraft nosecones.

The techniques use materials such as copper and silver to give surfaces electrical function. This means you can connect devices via tracks or add features such as antennas or capacitive touch to your surfaces. Depending on which technique you use, metal tracks that support high currents can achieve base metal conductivity of up to 100%.

In parallel, the team behind the techniques aims to simplify manufacturing, compared to conventional methods of creating conductive tracks on curved and complex surfaces. Where other approaches require some level of off-machine processing, including difficult manual tasks, the newly developed techniques enable on-machine metallization, meaning there are fewer overall steps and less handling.

Unlocking new design opportunities

As product designers and engineers ourselves, we’re incredibly excited about the potential of these new techniques. We foresee them enabling the engineering community to add electrical function to whole new form factors and sizes that would previously have been too complex or costly to manufacture. We also see them creating opportunities to place components or functionality in new locations or produce parts that are currently unviable.

Elsewhere, the techniques bring the freedom to use the right material for each part of the product and lay the necessary conductive track onto it. This can eliminate the need to compromise on the overall material used, or the requirement to make a whole component out of expensive polymer, which may not be fit for purpose.

We’re also excited about the manufacturing flexibility these techniques promise. Because the tooling requirement has been removed, it’s as easy to create 1,000 of the same part as it is to create 1,000 different parts or variants.

For budget holders, these new approaches will bring opportunities to reduce production and assembly costs due to less handling, logistics, and human input, as well as lower risk of damage to components during production and assembly. Automating what would traditionally have been largely manual processes is also a proven way to enhance overall product quality, meaning product failure rates once in the field should also reduce.

Pushing the boundaries of engineering

To summarize, these new techniques extend the boundaries of what design engineers can create:

• Lay down a conductive track on virtually any shape and type of surface, at scale.
• Place connectivity or electrical function in places that wouldn’t have been possible before.
• Reduce or eliminate compromises you’ve traditionally had to make in your designs.
• Or simply reduce the manufacturing complexity and cost of your product.

Let’s wrap up with some use cases where these new approaches could be effective. A great example would be mobile phone antennas, where you could simplify production compared to the conventional printed electronics techniques typically used today.

In the automotive industry, these techniques are being adopted to reduce the cost and complexity of manufacturing and installing components such as vehicle interiors. They can also unlock new functionality in dashboards, such as capacitive touch surfaces, or provide greater flexibility around the placement of switches.

Because the techniques can be applied at scale and are suitable for use on composite materials used in aerospace, they offer aircraft makers new opportunities in areas such as thermal management of wing heating and the aforementioned nosecone example.

Other large-scale engineering could also benefit from using techniques on curved surfaces inside radomes for frequency-selective shielding.

The R&D team at Q5D is exploring the broader potential of these techniques in manufacturing. To learn more or see a demonstration, contact the team at q5d.com/contact.

Simon Baggott is the chief marketing officer at Q5D Technologies. He has over 20 years of experience connecting people with products across B2B and B2C technology businesses. Simon has worked in both large multinational corporations such as BOC, GE, and JDR Cable Systems and in small to medium enterprises. He holds a BEng degree in materials engineering from the University of Swansea, Wales.

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Chairman and CEO Vimal Kapur on February 6 announced the plan to pursue a full separation of Automation and Aerospace Technologies, adding to the previously announced plan to spin-off Advanced Materials,

The move will result in three publicly listed companies with distinct strategies and growth drivers. The company said in a press release that the separation is intended to be completed in the second half of 2026 and will be done in a manner that is tax-free to Honeywell shareholders.

“The formation of three independent, industry-leading companies builds on the powerful foundation we have created, positioning each to pursue tailored growth strategies, and unlock significant value for shareholders and customers,” said Vimal Kapur, Chairman and CEO of Honeywell. “Our simplification of Honeywell has rapidly advanced over the past year, and we will continue to shape our portfolio to create further shareholder value. We have a rich pipeline of strategic bolt-on acquisition targets, and we plan to continue deploying capital to further enhance each business as we prepare them to become leading, independent public companies.”

Honeywell says the planned separations of automation, aerospace and advanced materials will deliver a slew of benefits, including simplified strategic focus and greater financial flexibility to pursue distinct organic growth opportunities through investment.

Honeywell Automation will create the buildings and industrial infrastructure of the future, leveraging process technology, software, and AI-enabled, autonomous solutions, said Kapur. “As a standalone company with a simplified operating structure and enhanced focus, Honeywell Automation will be better able to capitalize on the global megatrends underpinning its business, from energy security and sustainability to digitalization and artificial intelligence.”

Honeywell says it’s aerospace company will see unprecedented demand in the years ahead from commercial and defense markets, making it the right time for the business to operate as a standalone, public company. “Today’s announcement is the culmination of more than a century of innovation and investment in leading technologies from Honeywell Aerospace that have revolutionized the aviation industry several times over. This next step will further enable the business to continue to lead the future of aviation.”

Here’s a look at how each of the three new companies will operate:

Honeywell Automation: Positioned for the industrial world’s transition from automation to autonomy, with a comprehensive portfolio of technologies, solutions, and software to drive customers’ productivity. Honeywell Automation will maintain its global scale, with 2024 revenue of $18 billion. Honeywell Automation will connect assets, people and processes to push digital transformation.

Honeywell Aerospace: Its technology and solutions are used on virtually every commercial and defense aircraft platform worldwide and include aircraft propulsion, cockpit and navigation systems, and auxiliary power systems. With $15 billion in annual revenue in 2024 and a large, global installed base, Honeywell Aerospace will be one of the largest publicly traded, pure play aerospace suppliers.

Advanced Materials: This business will be a sustainability-focused specialty chemicals and materials company with a focus on fluorine products, electronic materials, industrial grade fibers, and healthcare packaging. With nearly $4 billion in revenue last year, Advanced Materials offers leading technologies with premier brands, including its low global warming Solstice hydrofluoro-olefin (HFO) technology.

Honeywell says it remains on pace to exceed its commitment to deploy at least $25 billion toward high-return capital expenditures, dividends, opportunistic share purchases and accretive acquisitions through 2025. The company says it will continue its portfolio transformation efforts during the separation planning process.

Since December 2023, Honeywell has announced a number of strategic actions with about $9 billion of accretive acquisitions, including the Access Solutions business from Carrier Global, Civitanavi Systems, CAES Systems, and the liquefied natural gas (LNG) business from Air Products. Honeywell will continue with its planned divestment of its Personal Protective Equipment business, which is expected to close in the first half of 2025.

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Robot adoption in factories around the world continues soar, according to a new report by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR).

The World Robotics 2024 report shows the new global average robot density reached a record 162 units per 10,000 employees in 2023, more than double the 74 units measured in 2017.

Robot density is a way to track the degree of automation adoption in the global manufacturing industry. Takayuki Ito, president of the International Federation of Robotics, says Korea and Singapore were the leaders in robot adoption, with China, Germany and Japan rounding out the top five.

The report says the European Union has a robot density of 219 units per 10,000 employees, an increase of 5.2%, with Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Slovenia in the global top ten.

North America’s robot density is 197 units per 10,000 employees – up 4.2%.  With a robot density of 295 units, the U.S. ranks eleventh among the most automated countries in the manufacturing sector.

Asia has a robot density of 182 units per 10,000 persons employed in manufacturing – an increase of 7.6%. Korea, Singapore, mainland China and Japan are among the top ten most automated countries.

Top countries for robot density

The Republic of Korea is the world’s number one adopter of industrial robots with 1,012 robots per 10,000 employees. Robot density has increased by 5% on average each year since 2018. With a world-renowned electronics industry and a strong automotive industry, the Korean economy relies on the two largest customers for industrial robots.

Singapore follows with 770 robots per 10,000 employees. Singapore is a small country with a very low number of employees in the manufacturing industry, so it can reach a high Robot density with a relatively small operational stock.

China took third place in 2023, surpassing Germany and Japan. The country’s push for automation technology results in a density of 470 robots per 10,000 employees. China entered the top 10 in 2019 and has doubled its robot density within four years.

Germany ranks fourth with 429 robots per 10,000 employees. The robot density of Europe’s largest economy has grown by 5% CAGR since 2018.

Japan is in fifth place with 419 units. Robot density of the world’s predominant robot manufacturing country grew by 7% on average each year (2018-2023).

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Danish cobot maker Universal Robots has unveiled its AI Accelerator, a ready-to-use hardware and software toolkit created to further enable the development of AI-powered cobot applications.

Designed for commercial and research applications, the UR AI Accelerator provides developers with an extensible platform to build applications, accelerate research and reduce time to market of AI products.

The toolkit brings AI acceleration to Universal Robots’ (UR) next-generation software platform PolyScope X and is powered by NVIDIA Isaac accelerated libraries and AI models, running on the NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin system-on-module. Specifically, NVIDIA Isaac Manipulator gives developers the ability to bring accelerated performance and state-of-the-art AI technologies to their robotics solutions. The toolkit also includes the high-quality, newly developed Orbbec Gemini 335Lg 3D camera.

Through in-built demo programs, the AI Accelerator leverages UR’s platform to enable features like pose estimation, tracking, object detection, path planning, image classification, quality inspection, state detection and more. Enabled by PolyScope X, the UR AI Accelerator also gives developers the freedom to choose exactly what toolsets, programming languages and libraries they want to use and the flexibility to create their own programs.

UR says AI Accelerator is just the first to market of a series of AI-powered products and capabilities in UR’s pipeline with the goal of making robotics more accessible.

With a small hardware upgrade, the software is compatible with UR’s e-Series cobots and the new-generation cobots UR20 and UR30.

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