The U.S. robot industry is growing again, and not just because car factories keep buying automation.
The International Federation of Robotics says industrial robot installations in the United States rose 11 percent in 2025, reaching 38,000 units. That marks a return to double-digit growth after a tougher stretch for automation spending. The early numbers point to a broader shift in where robots are being adopted, with food and other non-manufacturing sectors helping drive the rebound.
Automotive is still the biggest robot customer in the United States. IFR says the sector installed 13,500 robots in 2025, only 1 percent below the previous year’s result. That makes automotive the anchor of the market, even as other industries start catching up.
The food industry is the standout. IFR President Takayuki Ito said demand for flexible automation in food surged 30 percent, putting the sector roughly level with metal and machinery and electrical-electronics, each with about 3,000 installations in 2025.
That tells a bigger story than one year of robot sales. Robots are moving into places where automation used to be harder to justify. Food production, packaging, logistics and non-manufacturing work often involve variable products, tight margins, labor pressure and messy processes. If those sectors are installing more robots, it suggests automation is becoming more flexible and easier to deploy outside traditional auto plants.
The United States is also climbing in robot density. IFR says the country now has 307 industrial robots for every 10,000 manufacturing employees, putting it eighth worldwide and two spots higher than the previous year. South Korea remains far ahead at 1,220 robots per 10,000 workers, followed by countries including Germany at 449 and Japan at 446. The United States is ahead of China on density, with China at 166 robots per 10,000 manufacturing employees.
But density does not tell the whole story. China remains the giant by total installations. IFR says China installed 295,000 industrial robots in 2024, equal to 54 percent of the global market. Preliminary China results for 2025 are not yet published, but IFR estimates installations there are still about 10 times higher than in the United States.
That contrast is the real robotics race in one paragraph. The United States is improving, getting denser, and spreading automation into more industries. China is still operating at a much larger scale.
IFR will present its preliminary North American industrial robot installation figures at Automate 2026 in Chicago on June 24. That timing is fitting. Automate is where the U.S. robotics industry tries to show that the next wave of automation is not just for giant manufacturers anymore.
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