Investing in Industrial Robots for Retail Investors

The emergence of artificial intelligence, improved battery technology, and better materials mean that now robots are being put to use in everything from fast food service to teaching yoga. While all that makes for some tantalizing nightly news spots, investors are starting to think about how lucrative this space might be. Areas like robotic surgery have shown tremendous returns up until now, but some of the biggest opportunities lie with industrial robots. Here’s a look at what that growth looks like according to robot stock index creator ROBO Global:

In the past 6 years, use of industrial robots has nearly tripled with a great deal of that growth coming from Asia. This past week we saw Rethink Robotics take in another $18 million round of funding. Foxconn announced that they went all out and replaced every single one of their 60,000 underpaid suicidal workers with an expensive robot that won’t ask for a raise or suddenly stop working. And our “List of 20 Publicly Traded Robotics Companies”