Robots could consume as much electricity as 35 million US homes by 2035
The rapidly expanding global robotics industry could require 363 TWh of electricity annually by 2035 – equivalent to the yearly consumption of around 35 million average US households – according to new research from Wood Mackenzie. The finding arrives as energy capacity planning is already…
The finding arrives as energy capacity planning is already under pressure from AI data centres, making robotics a second and largely unmodelled demand on global electricity infrastructure. No single country shapes this market more than China.
Humanoid robots are still early in rollout but growing fast. Robotics demand has grown for over a decade, driven by structural labour shortages, rising labour costs, and supply chain security concerns.
What Happened
AI advances in computer vision, large language models, and reinforcement learning have extended robot capability into logistics, healthcare, and field operations. Most industrial robots draw power directly from the local grid, without low-carbon sourcing mandates.
The rapidly expanding global robotics industry could require 363 TWh of electricity annually by 2035 – equivalent to the yearly consumption of around 35 million average US households – according to new research from.
Wood Mackenzie puts combined robotics power consumption at 363 TWh by 2035, with industrial robots accounting for 357 TWh in the upper range and humanoid robots adding a further 6 TWh annually.
The industrial robotic market’s growth by 2035 is drawing power and approaching data centre scale.
Key Details
Robotics training infrastructure is captured within data centre demand estimates and excluded here to avoid double counting.
The 5 million robots in operation today consume 78 TWh a year, almost twice London’s electricity consumption.
Wood Mackenzie expects the operational fleet to reach 16 million units by 2035, if it can maintain the current pace of expansion at 12 percent a year.
It accounts for over 70 percent of annual global industrial robot installations, and Chinese companies are responsible for nearly 90 percent of all humanoid units currently in deployment.
Why It Matters
China State Grid illustrates that position directly: it is spending $1 billion in 2026 to buy 8,500 AI-enabled autonomous robots for more than 600 specialised tasks, from routine grid maintenance to live-line work on ultra-high voltage power lines.
If the global market reaches one billion units by 2050, power demand from humanoid robots alone could match South Korea’s entire electricity generation in 2026.
Average humanoid robot prices fell 93 percent between 2020 and 2025 to $58,000.
What Reports Say
Coverage of the story so far points to:
China’s Unitree Robotics’ G1 is now priced at $16,000, with an estimated annual electricity cost of $82 per unit at eight hours a day (based on a global average industrial tariff of $0.14 per.
Continued reporting by Robotics & Automation News as more details emerge
