Demand in China
China Installed 59% of the World's New Factory Robots
Robotics demand for chips now sits mostly in China. Chinese factories installed 354,000 industrial robots in 2025, 59% of the 603,000 installed worldwide and a record, according to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) World Robotics 2026 report. China installed more than nine times as many as the United States, which overtook Japan as the second-largest market at 38,400 units.
Chinese robot makers such as Estun, Inovance and Efort supplied 55% of China's installations, but the share slipped from 57% in 2024 as foreign suppliers grew 27%. Inside the robots, the motor-control microcontrollers, gate drivers, isolated sensing chips and encoders still come mainly from US, European and Japanese chip companies. The robot is increasingly Chinese; much of its silicon is not.
Installations
The US Passed Japan, but China Installed Nine Times More
| Market | Installations | Change from 2024 | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | 354,000 | +20% | 59% of the world; Chinese makers supplied 195,000 (55%) |
| United States | 38,400 | +12% | Overtook Japan as the second-largest market |
| Japan | 36,219 | -19% | Lowest in a decade; home of Fanuc and Yaskawa |
| South Korea | About 30,000 | -1% | Highest robot density in the world |
| Germany | 24,842 | -8% | Largest market in Europe; EU total 60,500, down 11% |
| World | 603,000 | +11% | Operational stock passed 5 million robots, up 9% |
Inside an axis
Each Robot Axis Repeats the Same Chip Chain
Suppliers
The Motor-Control Chips Come From US, European and Japanese Suppliers
| Chip class | Job in the robot | Leading suppliers | Where made |
|---|---|---|---|
| Motor-control MCUs and DSPs | Run the current, speed and position loops in each servo drive | Texas Instruments (C2000), Renesas, STMicroelectronics, Infineon, NXP | TI and some Renesas parts in their own fabs; many at TSMC |
| Power transistors | Switch motor current; GaN entering low-voltage cobot and humanoid joints | Infineon, Mitsubishi Electric, Fuji Electric, onsemi, ST; EPC and Navitas for GaN | Europe, Japan, US; GaN at TSMC and in-house fabs |
| Gate drivers and isolation | Drive and isolate the power stage | TI, Infineon, ADI, Silicon Labs, Broadcom | Mostly abroad; TI and ADI partly in US fabs |
| Isolated sensing | Measure phase current and bus voltage | TI, ADI, Infineon, Allegro | US, Europe, Asia |
| Encoder ICs | Report shaft angle at 17 to 26 bits | iC-Haus, ams OSRAM, Renesas, Broadcom; Japanese robot makers build their own | Germany, Austria, Japan |
| Controller processors | Plan motion, run safety logic and vision | Intel, AMD, NXP, TI; NVIDIA Jetson for AI vision | TSMC and Intel fabs |
Humanoids
Humanoids Multiply the Joint Count Five Times or More
Humanoid robots multiply the per-axis chip chain: a humanoid has 20 to 40 or more actuated joints against six in a factory arm, plus cameras, force sensors and a battery. China builds most of the world's humanoids today. The largest single plan is in Texas: Tesla's Optimus factory at Giga Texas, designed for 10 million Optimus 4 robots a year, 10 times its Fremont line, with volume production targeted for summer 2027. At 1,100 to 2,200 chips per robot, that one plant at full rate would need 11 billion to 22 billion chips a year (computed). See Humanoid Semiconductor Stack for the chip content of a humanoid and Humanoids and Robotics for who builds them and on which computers. Joint-level chips are covered on GaN Motor Drive ICs, Encoder and Positioning ICs and Force-Torque Sensor ICs.
IoT
IoT Runs on Wireless Microcontrollers Made Mostly at TSMC
The Internet of Things (IoT) runs on wireless microcontrollers: a small processor, radio, memory and security block on one die, sold in hundreds of millions. The largest Wi-Fi microcontroller maker, Espressif Systems of Shanghai, grew revenue 27.8% to about CNY 2.57B in 2025 and has shipped more than 1.5 billion chips; TSMC makes a significant portion of its products (Espressif 2025 annual report). Industrial IoT adds sensors, isolated interfaces and security chips to the same pattern.
| Supplier | Headquarters | Main radios | Wafers made by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Espressif Systems | Shanghai, China | Wi-Fi, Bluetooth LE, Thread, Zigbee | TSMC |
| Nordic Semiconductor | Trondheim, Norway | Bluetooth LE, Thread, cellular IoT | TSMC |
| Silicon Labs | Austin, Texas | Bluetooth LE, Zigbee, Thread, Wi-Fi | TSMC |
| NXP, TI, Infineon, ST, Renesas | Europe, US, Japan | Bluetooth LE, Wi-Fi, sub-GHz | Own fabs and foundries |
| Realtek, MediaTek | Taiwan | Wi-Fi, Bluetooth | TSMC and UMC |
US status
Few Robot Chips and Few Robots Are Made in the US
- Some US volume
- US planned
- Made abroad
| Chip class | Example US production | Notes | US status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Motor-control MCUs | Texas Instruments fabs in Texas and Utah | Many competing MCUs are made at TSMC in Taiwan | Some US volume |
| Isolated sensing and gate drivers | TI; ADI Wilmington, Massachusetts | Packaged mostly in Southeast Asia | Some US volume |
| Power transistors and modules | Small volumes | Most made in Europe and Japan | Made abroad |
| Encoder ICs | None at volume | Germany, Austria and Japan | Made abroad |
| Wireless IoT MCUs | None at volume | Espressif, Nordic and Silicon Labs all use TSMC; Silicon Labs designs in Austin | Made abroad |
| Robots themselves | A few US makers | 38,400 robots were installed in the US in 2025, most imported from Japan, Europe and China | US planned |
Record
Page Record
- Covers
- Industrial robot installations by country, robot supplier shares in China, the chip chain in a robot axis, robot chip suppliers, humanoid links, wireless IoT microcontrollers and US production status
- Sources
- International Federation of Robotics, World Robotics 2026 (September 24, 2026, via The Next Web); Espressif Systems 2025 annual report; company product and site information for chip suppliers; servo drive count computed by SemiconductorX assuming six axes per robot. Folded in: IoT and IIoT Semiconductors
- Last verified
- October 2026