The firms that will win in battle of man vs machine - Independent.ie

The surge in robot sales has seen the emergence of four major suppliers, two Japanese, Fanuc and Yaskawa, a Swiss/Swedish concern ABB and Germany's Kuka AG. The rise in robot demand has coincided with a jump in their share prices. Kuka made the news last year not because its robots were building Tesla and Porsche cars, but for its €4.5bn takeover by the Chinese appliance company Medea, which hopes to build small mobile robots for the home and consumer industry. However, the German government was unhappy with the takeover. While it has a right to block any non-EU company from acquiring more than a 25pc stake in any German entity, it is limited to public order being endangered or national security.