China Takes Global Lead in Robotics, While Domestic AI Chip Capabilities Continue to Catch-Up 

Jon Peddie Research (JPR) has published its subscriberonly white paper China’s Strategic Advance in Robotics and Automation. The report confirms China’s worldleading position in robotics and automation. China stands as a key global testing ground and industrial hub for embodied intelligence, with unmatched scale of deployed industrial robots and a large domestic humanoidrobot developer ecosystem, even as its highend AI chip supply chain remains in catch-up mode.

In terms of realworld deployment, more than two million industrial robots operate across Chinese factories. Annual new installations surpass the combined total of all other countries worldwide, fuelling digital transformation across the manufacturing sector. The humanoidrobot segment sees particularly explosive growth. Over 140 domestic companies are engaged in humanoid R&D and manufacturing. Major electricvehicle OEMs have stepped into this emerging field: XPeng aims for mass production of its humanoid robots in 2026, while BYD unveiled its firstever humanoid robot this month. Chinese manufacturers account for a dominant share of global humanoid robot shipments, outperforming overseas peers in massdelivery capacity. China has built solid strengths in hardware assembly, motion control and physicalAI engineering capabilities.

The white paper also pinpoints existing industry bottlenecks. Despite leading the world in finishedrobot production and commercial rollout, many Chinese robot developers still rely heavily on foreign highend AI processors such as NVIDIA hardware for advanced reasoning and modeltraining workloads. Highperformance AI chips serve as the “brain” enabling robots to perceive, think and move. Domestic highend robotspecific AI chips are still under development. The boom of China’s robotics sector has outpaced progress toward chip selfreliance, making robotics a key realworld benchmark for China’s domestic AIchip advancementJon Peddie….

This special white paper maps out full supplychain dynamics, listing the world’s top10 robotAIprocessor vendors together with their respective Chinese humanoidrobot clients. Indepth technical breakdowns and datasets are available for JPR subscribers. The research notes that China’s huge domestic robotics market generates massive realworld demand, offering abundant testing ground for homegrown AI chips and driving continuous semiconductor innovation upstream.

Industry observers comment that China’s robotics sector has secured global advantages in completemachine manufacturing and realworld scenario deployment. Yet challenges persist in highend computing chips. Its largescale industrial base brings competitive strengths while creating strong incentives for crosssector collaboration to accelerate the selfsufficiency of core components.