On October 30th, Arjun Jain, founder of Fast Code AI, released a statistical analysis of robotics research data, examining 19,273 papers presented at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) and the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) from 2021 to 2026. The data shows that China continues to expand its advantage in robotics research output: at ICRA in 2026, China accounted for 31% of first-author papers, surpassing the US's 29%; in visual language action (VLA) related papers, China accounted for 52%, while the US accounted for 22%. However, in terms of research influence and academic resources, the US still leads: from 2022 to 2024, the US accounted for 50% of the top 1% of cited papers, while China accounted for only 17%; in 2026, the US accounted for 47% and 52% of keynote speeches and session chairs, respectively, while China accounted for only 9% and 5%. More notably, the study found that among the IROS papers led by the United States, 24 out of 29 papers involving humanoid robots used robots made in China, accounting for 83%. The data reveals a clear differentiation in the robotics industry chain: China's influence in research output and hardware manufacturing is rising, while the United States maintains its advantage in high-impact academic achievements, research toolchains, and academic organizations.
