The electricity demands of industrial and humanoid robots are set to become a major infrastructure challenge comparable to AI data centers, potentially consuming as much power as France's entire nuclear fleet by 2035. A new study from Wood Mackenzie forecasts that combined global robotics electricity consumption could reach 363 terawatt-hours (TWh) annually by 2035, with industrial robots accounting for 357 TWh and humanoid robots contributing another 6 TWh as deployments accelerate.

Today, the robotics power problem may seem distant. Around five million industrial robots were operating globally in 2025, consuming an estimated 78 TWh of electricity annually, equivalent to roughly 20 to 25 percent of current global data center power demand and almost twice London's annual electricity consumption. But the trajectory is steep. If the industrial robot fleet maintains its current annual expansion rate of around 12 percent, the number of operational machines could reach 16 million by 2035.

Why Is Robot Power Demand Growing So Quickly?

The expansion is being driven by falling hardware costs and labor shortages in developed economies. Average humanoid robot prices declined 93 percent between 2020 and 2025 to approximately $58,000, with Chinese manufacturers pushing prices even lower. China's Unitree Robotics offers its G1 humanoid robot for around $16,000, illustrating how rapidly the economics of embodied AI are changing. At those price points, businesses facing worker shortages find robotics increasingly attractive despite the electricity costs.

China is emerging as the central force behind this expansion. The country accounts for more than 70 percent of annual global industrial robot installations, while Chinese companies were responsible for nearly 90 percent of humanoid robots deployed in 2025. The scale of investment is extending robotics beyond manufacturing into critical infrastructure. China State Grid is spending $1 billion during 2026 to acquire 8,500 AI-enabled autonomous robots capable of performing more than 600 specialized tasks, ranging from routine grid inspection and maintenance to live-line operations on ultra-high-voltage power infrastructure.

How Will Robotics Reshape Power Grid Planning?

• Distributed Demand: Unlike data centers, where electricity requirements are concentrated at identifiable facilities, robotic power consumption could be spread across millions of individual machines and industrial locations, making future demand more difficult for utilities and policymakers to model.
• Rapid Humanoid Growth: Humanoid robotics remains at an earlier stage of commercial development, but Wood Mackenzie expects deployment to accelerate rapidly, with the global humanoid robot stock growing at a compound annual rate of more than 90 percent between 2025 and 2035, potentially exceeding 10 million units as annual shipments rise above four million.
• Long-Term Scale: If the global humanoid robot population eventually reaches one billion units by 2050, Wood Mackenzie estimates their electricity requirements alone could become comparable with South Korea's entire 2026 power generation.

"Power constraints are becoming a real brake on robotic adoption, and that matters because labour markets in developed economies are running short of alternatives. Industrial robots already draw 78 TWh a year globally, and that is before humanoid robots reach any real scale. By 2035, combined demand could hit 363 TWh," stated Robert Liew, Director of Integrated Energy Research at Wood Mackenzie.

Robert Liew, Director, Integrated Energy Research at Wood Mackenzie

The emergence of robotics as a major electricity consumer comes as utilities, governments, and technology companies are already attempting to accommodate unprecedented power requirements from AI infrastructure. Data center operators are seeking access to increasingly large blocks of electricity as hyperscale facilities and AI campuses expand. Robotics could add another distributed but substantial layer of demand across factories, logistics centers, warehouses, utilities, and eventually workplaces.

Wood Mackenzie's forecast indicates industrial robotics will remain overwhelmingly responsible for electricity consumption during the coming decade. However, the rapid development of humanoid systems means their contribution could become increasingly significant beyond 2035. The convergence of AI, robotics, and electrification therefore presents a wider infrastructure challenge. As intelligence moves beyond data centers and into physical machines, the energy requirements associated with AI will increasingly extend into factories, warehouses, transport systems, and electricity networks themselves.

For the technology industry and energy planners alike, access to computing power may consequently represent only part of the infrastructure equation. Access to sufficient electricity could become equally important in determining how quickly embodied AI moves from experimental deployments to operation at global scale. The robotics power surge adds urgency to long-standing questions about grid capacity, renewable energy expansion, and whether existing infrastructure can support the simultaneous growth of data centers, electrified transportation, and now millions of power-hungry machines.