What happened in China China's National Bureau of Statistics confirmed that Chinese factories produced 143,608 industrial robots in January and February 2026 alone — a 31 percent increase year-over-year. That acceleration matters as much as the absolute number. The same two-month window in 2025 had already delivered a strong 27 percent rise, when output stood at 91,088 units. In other words, growth is not plateauing; it is compounding. Zoom out and the trajectory becomes structural rather than cyclical. In full-year 2025, China produced 773,074 industrial robots, a 28 percent increase over the previous year. The 2026 opening months suggest the country is on course to break that record comfortably. On the service robot side, the picture looks different at first glance. China produced 2.54 million service robots in January and February 2026, recording only 1 percent year-over-year growth — a sharp deceleration from the industrial segment. An NBS official…