Robot density Β· AI infrastructure Β· AV fleet Β· Automation score
On measured robot density β the standard gauge of manufacturing automation β South Korea leads with 1220 robots per 10,000 manufacturing workers against Taiwan's 302 (2024 data). That is a gap of 918 robots per 10,000 workers, or roughly 4.0Γ Taiwan's level. Both figures come from IFR World Robotics via Our World in Data.
Direction of travel matters as much as the gap. South Korea moved from 1012 (2023) to 1220 (2024), a +20.6% change, while Taiwan went from 294 to 302, a +2.7% change. South Korea is therefore closing ground or extending its lead faster of the two. Rising density usually reflects new robot installations outpacing manufacturing employment, rather than a shrinking workforce.
On high-performance computing, South Korea has 19 systems on the current TOP500 list against Taiwan's 11. Autonomous-vehicle figures shown above are modeled estimates and are excluded from the Automation Score.