1. The inflection point: from selling machines to owning operating outcomes

  For the first phase of robot globalization, the central questions were hardware-centric: can the product meet performance requirements, is the price competitive, can it pass certification, and can a sales channel be established? As China’s robotics supply base matured, its global competitiveness strengthened materially. China became a net exporter of industrial robots in 2025; in the first half of 2026, exports reached RMB 6.29 billion, up 18.6% year on year, across 141 countries and regions. [1]

  Once robots move into production environments, however, the customer’s questions change. Who owns the go-live? How do multiple devices coordinate? Who diagnoses cross-system failures? Is there a local engineer and spare-part capability? Will the architecture still support expansion three years later?

  This marks a new phase of globalization: delivery accountability no longer ends at equipment acceptance. It extends into system availability, ongoing maintenance, software updates, and operating outcomes.

  Exhibit 1 | The competitive center of robot globalization is shifting

  2. Three structural changes are turning delivery into the new barrier

  2.1 Multi-vendor environments are making orchestration infrastructure, not an add-on

  Overseas automation environments rarely remain single-vendor for long. A warehouse may begin with AMRs, then add autonomous forklifts, conveyors, robotic arms, doors, lifts, or vision systems. These assets arrive with different protocols, task models, traffic rules, and fault-handling logic.

  In 2026, VDA and VDMA released VDA 5050 Version 3.0, extending the vendor-neutral communication interface between mobile robots and a master control system, including better support for more autonomous navigation. [3] The distinction matters: VDA 5050 standardizes communication; it does not replace end-to-end orchestration. Business priority, traffic coordination, resource allocation, exception recovery, and WMS/MES integration still require a higher operating layer.

  As hardware diversity increases, the need for a vendor-neutral orchestration layer rises with it. The more open the hardware landscape becomes, the more valuable a common operating logic becomes.

  2.2 Compliance is expanding from machine safety into the software and cybersecurity lifecycle

  Robots are increasingly IT/OT products. Remote service, OTA updates, cloud connectivity, data interfaces, and AI capabilities improve performance, but also extend product responsibility into software versions, cybersecurity, vulnerability handling, and data governance.

The EU Machinery Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 will apply from 20 January 2027. [4] In parallel, reporting obligations under the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) took effect on 11 September 2026, while the Act’s main obligations will apply from 11 December 2027. [5] For connected robots and software components, compliance is therefore moving from a pre-market certification exercise toward an ongoing lifecycle obligation.

  The procurement implication is material: customers will increasingly evaluate not only whether a robot works, but who maintains the software, who fixes vulnerabilities, how upgrades are revalidated, where data is managed, and how accountability is allocated when incidents occur.

  2.3 Service-based models extend the responsibility horizon

  IFR data show that transportation and logistics accounted for 102,900 professional service robots sold in 2024, up 14%. Within that supplier sample, Robot-as-a-Service grew 42% year on year. IFR explicitly notes that its service-robot dataset is sample-based and should not be treated as a full-market projection. [2]

  Even with that caveat, the direction is clear. As customers adopt subscription, rental, usage-based, or long-term service models, more operating risk shifts to the supplier. Evaluation therefore moves away from purchase price alone and toward uptime, throughput, response time, maintenance cost, and total cost of ownership.

  3. The underlying logic is changing: customers are buying sustained automation capacity

  Exhibit 2 | Four shifts in the operating model

  The central point is not that software replaces hardware. The object being purchased has changed. Hardware remains a necessary condition, but the customer ultimately pays for sustained manufacturing capacity, logistics capacity, or fulfillment capacity. Orchestration and local operations are the layers that convert hardware capability into business outcomes in an overseas environment.

  4. The key risk is not a single device failure, but an accountability gap

  A typical overseas project involves multiple parties: robot vendors own the machines, WMS/MES providers own business systems, local integrators own parts of installation, and specialist suppliers own conveyors, doors, lifts, or robotic arms. When a single device fails, ownership is usually clear. When system throughput declines, traffic deadlocks emerge, or interfaces behave unpredictably, accountability fragments quickly.

  The problem is not a lack of suppliers. It is the absence of a party accountable for the operating result as a whole. A technically sophisticated vendor landscape does not automatically create an integrated delivery organization.

  5. Five platform capabilities will define the next phase

  Exhibit 3 | Five capabilities required for global robot delivery

  The hardest element to replicate is not any one of these capabilities, but the ability to make them operate as a closed loop. When software, engineering, operations, compliance, and commercial design remain separate, the customer still carries integration risk. Delivery accountability exists only when those capabilities are organized together.

  6. The profit pool is shifting from hardware margin toward system accountability

  As robot products mature, supplier density rises, and pricing becomes more transparent, pure hardware margin faces structural pressure. By contrast, software licenses, system integration, implementation, local operations, spare-part management, remote monitoring, upgrades, and SLA services create longer-duration value interfaces.

  This does not mean hardware matters less. It means the value chain is lengthening: hardware sets the performance ceiling; orchestration determines coordination efficiency; local operations determine availability; lifecycle management determines whether the system can remain compliant and expandable over time.

  7. A platform perspective: watch the three accountability interfaces

  From the industrial-platform perspective that DIYI follows, the more durable question is not which robot brand gains the most overseas share, but which layer captures responsibility across three interfaces:

• Between hardware and software: who owns cross-vendor task, traffic, and resource orchestration;
• Between the China supply base and overseas sites: who builds dependable local engineering, service, and spare-parts coverage;
• Between project delivery and long-term operations: who converts one-time acceptance into measurable, sustainable SLA performance.

  These interfaces determine whether robot globalization evolves from equipment export into system-capability export. For platform businesses, the opportunity is not simply to add more robot SKUs, but to organize fragmented hardware, software, engineering, and services into a durable accountability model.

  Conclusion

  China’s robotics industry has built increasingly strong global manufacturing competitiveness. Yet once robots move from exhibitions and pilot sites into factories, warehouses, and production lines, the standard of competition changes with them. Customers ultimately do not pay for the number of robots deployed; they pay for stable operation, higher productivity, and the ability to expand without rebuilding the system.

  The next phase of robot globalization is therefore not simply a move from “Made in China” to “sold overseas.” It is a progression from hardware export, to system delivery, to long-term operations. The companies most likely to scale internationally may not be those with the broadest robot catalogues, but those that can connect heterogeneous hardware, provide a common orchestration layer, build local service networks, and ultimately own the operating outcome.

Public Sources

[1] State Council Information Office: Briefing on China’s imports and exports in H1 2026  

[2] International Federation of Robotics, World Robotics 2025 – Service Robots  

[3] VDA / VDMA: Version 3.0 of VDA 5050 released, 20 Apr 2026

[4] Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 on machinery

[5] European Commission: Cyber Resilience Act – Reporting obligations / Implementation