China is making and installing factory robots at a far greater pace than any other country, with the United States a distant third, further strengthening China’s already dominant global role in manufacturing.

中国正在以远超其他国家的速度制造和安装工业机器人，美国则远远落后，位居第三，这使中国在全球制造业中已经拥有的主导地位进一步得到巩固。

There were more than two million robots working in Chinese factories last year, according to a report released Thursday by the International Federation of Robotics, a nonprofit trade group for makers of industrial robots. Factories in China installed nearly 300,000 new robots last year, more than the rest of the world combined, the report found. American factories installed 34,000.

据面向工业机器人制造商的非营利行业组织——国际机器人联合会周四发布的报告，去年中国工厂运行的机器人数量超过200万台。报告还称，中国工厂去年新安装了近30万台机器人，超过世界其他地区的总和。美国工厂安装的机器人为3.4万台。

While Chinese factories have been using more robots, they have also gotten better at making them. The government has used public capital and policy directives to spur Chinese companies to become leaders in robotics and other advanced technologies like semiconductors and artificial intelligence.

在中国工厂加大机器人运用的同时，其机器人制造能力也在提升。政府运用公共资金和政策指令来鼓励中国企业成为机器人以及半导体和人工智能等其他先进技术领域的领军者。

Worldwide, robots and artificial intelligence are playing an increasingly prominent and disruptive role in manufacturing. Factory robots range from machines that weld car parts together to claws that lifts boxes onto conveyor belts. As technology helps factories become more efficient, some are making do with fewer workers and altering the roles of others.

在全球范围内，机器人和人工智能正对制造业产生日益重要且具颠覆性的作用。工业机器人适用范围广泛，从焊接汽车零部件的机械臂到将箱子吊到传送带上的机械爪。随着这种技术帮助工厂提高效率，一些工厂需要的工人数量正在减少，其他员工的角色也发生了变化。

Over the past decade, China has embarked on a broad campaign to use more robots in its factories, become a major maker of robots and combine the industry with advances in artificial intelligence.

过去十年里，中国开始了大规模行动，在工厂推广机器人，成为机器人的制造大国，并把人工智能领域的进步结合到机器人行业中来。

Chinese companies have benefited from a national push that mirrors how the country’s electric vehicle and artificial intelligence industries have grown, said Lian Jye Su, a chief analyst at Omdia, a tech research firm.

科技研究公司Omdia的首席分析师苏连杰表示，中国的企业已从国家层面的大力推动中受益，这与中国的电动汽车和人工智能行业的发展方式完全一样。

“This is not a coincidence,” Mr. Su said. “It has taken many years of investment by Chinese companies.”

“这并非偶然，”苏连杰说。“中国的企业在这方面投资已有多年。”

China’s drive for factory automation has been a key part of achieving its position as the world’s manufacturing powerhouse. Factories in China have installed more than 150,000 robots each year since 2017. At the same time, manufacturing output ballooned. By the start of this year, factories in China were making nearly a third of all manufactured goods worldwide, more than the United States, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Britain combined.

中国让自己成为世界制造业强国努力的一个关键部分是大力推动工厂自动化。自2017年以来，中国工厂每年安装的机器人数量超过15万台。与此同时，制造业的产出也在大幅增长。截至今年年初，中国工厂生产的制成品已占全球总量的近三分之一，超过美国、德国、日本、韩国以及英国的总和。

Robot installations fell last year, compared with the year before, in all four of the next largest factory robot-using countries: Japan, the United States, South Korea and Germany. Japan installed 44,000.

中国之后的四个使用工业机器人最多的国家分别是日本、美国、韩国以及德国。与上年相比，这四个国家安装的机器人数量去年都有所下降。其中日本安装了4.4万台机器人。

In 2015, Beijing made it a top priority for China to become globally competitive in robotics as part of its Made in China 2025 campaign to import fewer advanced manufactured goods.

2015年，中国政府把提升本国在机器人领域的全球竞争力作为《中国制造2025》运动的一项首要任务，以减少先进制成品的进口。

Industries received almost unlimited access to loans from state-controlled banks at low interest rates as well as help in buying foreign competitors, direct infusions of government money and other assistance. And in 2021, the government issued a detailed national strategy for expanded deployment of robots.

重点行业几乎可以无限制地从国有银行获得低利率贷款，并在收购外国竞争对手上得到帮助，享有政府的直接注资或其他方式的扶持。2021年，中国政府颁布了一项全国性的详细战略推广使用机器人。

“You can see how well that strategy worked out; without a strategy, a country is always at a disadvantage,” said Susanne Bieller, the general secretary of the robotics federation.

“大家能看到这项战略多么有效；缺乏战略的国家始终处于劣势，”机器人联合会秘书长苏珊娜·比勒说。

China’s share of the world’s robot manufacturing rose last year to a third of the global supply, up from a quarter in 2023, according to the federation. Japan, the previous leader, dropped to 29 percent of the world market from 38 percent the year before.

该联合会的数据显示，中国在全球机器人制造业占的份额去年上升到了33%，高于2023年的25%。此前领先的日本在全球市场占比已从2023年的38%下降到了去年的29%。

Until last year, China installed more imported robots in its factories than domestically made ones. But last year, nearly three-fifths of the robots installed in China were also made in the country.

直到去年之前，中国工厂安装的进口机器人数量仍多于国产机器人。但中国去年安装的机器人中有近60%是国产的。

Overall, China has five times as many robots working in its factories as the United States.

总体而言，中国工厂使用的机器人数量是美国的五倍。

宁波极氪汽车工厂里运送重物的自动平板车。

The federation’s data does not include humanoid robots, the two-legged machines that remain largely in experimental stages. But the government support has led to a boom in start-ups making humanoid robots and an ecosystem of companies that make specialized components for robots, such as motorized joints.

机器人联合会的数据不包括人形机器人，这种有两条腿的机器人目前大部分仍处于实验阶段。但中国政府的扶持已带动了人形机器人初创企业的蓬勃发展，形成了一个生产机器人专用部件（例如电动关节）的配套产业生态系统。

The humanoid robot start-up Unitree Robotics, based in the tech hot spot of Hangzhou, said earlier this month that it planned to go public by the end of the year. Unitree’s latest basic humanoid robots are priced at about $6,000 in China, a fraction of the price of robots made by the robot maker Boston Dynamics, a leading American player in the industry.

总部设在技术热点城市杭州的人形机器人初创企业宇树科技有限公司曾在本月早些时候表示，有计划在今年年底前上市。宇树科技生产的最新型号人形机器人起价3.99万元，比行业领军者美国波士顿动力公司机器人的售价低得多。

Still, Chinese companies lag foreign competitors in their ability to make some key components used in humanoid robots, including some sensors and semiconductors, said Mr. Su at Omdia.

尽管如此，中国公司在制造人形机器人的一些关键部件（包括某些传感器和半导体）方面仍落后于外国竞争对手，Omdia的苏连杰说道。

The top versions of many components are still made in countries with longtime leads in robot manufacturing like Germany and Japan, he said.

许多部件的顶级产品仍在德国和日本等长期在机器人制造业领先的国家生产，他说。

“If you were to assemble a really top-notch humanoid robot, it would be almost completely non-China-made,” Mr. Su said. “Maybe it would have one or two Chinese components, but by and large the entire system would be very international.”

“如果你要组装一个真正顶尖的人形机器人的话，它几乎完全不是中国制造的，”苏连杰说。“它也许会用一两个中国部件，但总的来说，整个系统会是很国际化的。”

But when it comes to factory robots, China has multiple advantages. China has large numbers of skilled electricians and specialized computer programmers who can install robots. Even China has had some shortages of robot installation specialists, however, with pay surging to almost $60,000 a year.

但就工业机器人而言，中国拥有众多优势。它有大量能安装机器人的熟练电工和专业计算机程序员。但就连中国也有机器人安装专家短缺的问题，他们的年薪飙升至近43万元。

And China has an artificial intelligence industry that is strongly focused on using the new technology to track and improve every aspect of factory equipment performance.

此外，中国的人工智能行业高度聚焦于运用这项新技术来追踪和优化工厂设备性能的各个环节。

Companies in China “are using A.I. to swoop in and say which machines are doing great and which are a little off,” said Cameron Johnson, a supply chain consultant in Shanghai specializing in automation. Outside of China, he added, “people aren’t looking at it as a manufacturing tool, at least not yet, and not how the Chinese are.”

中国企业“正在利用人工智能迅速介入，判断哪些机器运行良好，哪些机器略有不足”，在上海从事自动化行业供应链研究的顾问卡梅伦·约翰逊说。他还说，在中国以外的地方，“人们还没有把人工智能视为一个制造业工具，至少目前还没有，不像中国人正在做的那样。”