The Robotics Advantage Is Now About The Ecosystem

John Healy, Vice President Client Computing and Physical AI Group, General Manager Industrial and Robotics Division at Intel Corporation.

​For years, robots have captured our imagination as machines that lift, deliver, assemble, fly and walk. Today, the real revolution may not be in how they move but in how they are built, connected and continuously improved. ​

Many automation architectures were designed for a more predictable time, as a traditional robot performs a defined task inside a tightly controlled system.

An AI-enabled robot must absorb new models, sensors and workflows; collaborate with other machines; and improve without requiring the entire deployment to be rebuilt.

Closed, vertically integrated systems may deliver near-term optimization, but they can also create high switching costs, slow integration and dependence on one supplier’s roadmap.

The emerging model is more pragmatic: open at the foundation and proprietary at the edges. Similar to the internet, where common protocols became shared infrastructure while businesses differentiated above them, robotics is beginning to separate foundational layers from competitive ones.

How Openness Is Becoming Infrastructure

Robotics adoption is accelerating. The International Federation of Robotics reported “542,000 industrial robots installed in 2024—more than double the number 10 years ago,” with annual installations projected to surpass 700,000 by 2028.

Growth is increasingly extending beyond the factory floor to autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), service robots and the first generation of general-purpose humanoids, all built as software-defined systems from the outset.

The rise of embodied AI is accelerating this transition. As robots become software-defined systems powered by rapidly evolving AI models, the ability to integrate, upgrade and coordinate across platforms becomes increasingly important. As fleets grow larger and more heterogeneous, common interfaces become economically essential.