How Scotland is falling behind in the global robot revolution

He assembled a world-class robotics team. They designed and developed technology sophisticated enough that some of the largest companies in the industry licensed it. They began building customers across the UK and the US. In 2022, investors and venture capitalists backed them with £2 million. By 2024, the founders of Skype and Bolt had invested another £1.4m.

Then, in January of this year, Kingdom Technologies entered liquidation.

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Remarkable technology

In robotics, the technology is mature and proven. The costs of buying and operating have dropped dramatically. Scotland is continually growing new robotics companies with products that should be finding markets here. So why is Kingdom Technologies’ tale one that is becoming far too familiar?

“In a challenging fundraising climate and an increasingly competitive market,” Kangro reflected, “we were not able to raise the capital needed to continue.”

His company didn’t fail because its technology was weak. It failed because it could not find enough customers quickly enough. While it waited for businesses to adopt this new technology, the firm ran out of runway.

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It’s the second robotics company with market-ready products to collapse in recent times. The Small Robot Company faced the same problem – remarkable technology that farmers desperately needed to make crop management easier, but not enough early adoption to keep the lights on while they grew the business.

This isn’t about either company’s business decisions. It’s about a market challenge that Scotland and the UK need to face.

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Germany installing vast numbers of robots

Scotland has spent years building world-class research capability in robotics. We’ve succeeded. By almost any measure, Scotland’s robotics research is genuinely excellent. But excellence in research isn’t the same as businesses actually using it.

Globally, it’s expected that the robotics market will be worth more than £200 billion by 2030. Germany installs nearly eight times more robots than the UK, according to recent figures. Asia accounts for nearly three quarters of all global robot installations.

These countries aren’t winning because they’re necessarily better at inventing. They’re winning because their businesses are adopting robotic technology more quickly.

Meanwhile, across the UK, approximately 20,000 of our 27,000 small and medium-sized businesses in manufacturing operate without any robotics whatsoever. The gap between having the solution and deploying it across the economy is where we’re falling behind.

Food industry taking to robots

But we can see what’s possible when an industry embraces robotics at pace. Look at food manufacturing. It’s a sector with a rich history of automation, and it’s showing what happens when businesses adopt confidently.

Companies like Aberdeen-based Leap AI are thriving because food manufacturers across the UK – from Fife to Kent – are ready to implement robotic solutions. It’s addressing acute labour shortages that cost the industry £1.4bn annually. It’s improving efficiency. It’s staying competitive.

That sector-wide confidence creates the market that robotics companies need to survive and scale. When businesses adopt at pace, innovation doesn’t just survive – it flourishes. Leap AI has secured £7.9m in funding and is growing. Not because it got lucky, but because its sector was ready.

Imagine if manufacturing, healthcare, energy, and agriculture showed the same confidence. That’s the opportunity in front of us.

The Danish example

Denmark shows what this could look like at national scale. With a population smaller than Scotland’s, they’ve built one of Europe’s strongest robotics ecosystems. Their manufacturers install 234 robots per 10,000 workers. The UK manages 119.

The difference? Danish businesses are more confident in adopting robotic technology. Part of that comes from their Odense Robotics hub, which connects companies with suppliers, provides hands-on testing facilities, and helps businesses move from showing interest to implementation.

Scotland is building similar support. The National Robotarium, which I lead, is working to grow awareness of robotics, increase business confidence in the technology and support companies to build a new technology sector in Scotland.

We run Robotics Readiness Workshops – free programmes helping businesses understand where robotics fits their operations and how to implement it. We’ve engaged tens of thousands of young people in robotics education, supported dozens of start-ups, and delivered industry-funded projects showing what’s achievable.

But no single organisation can solve this. The real shift happens when businesses across Scotland, in all sectors, decide robotics isn’t something for the future. It’s something for now.

What most people don’t realise is that when a business makes use of robotics, they’re not just solving their own problems, like addressing labour shortages, improving efficiency, and staying competitive. They’re also helping build the market that keeps innovative Scottish robotics companies alive.

Businesses must act

Kingdom Technologies had the talent. It had the technology. It had backing from serious investors who believed in what they were building. What it couldn’t get was enough businesses moving fast enough from “this could work for us” to “we’re doing this”.

That’s the gap we need to close. Not through better research; we’re already excellent at that. Not through more innovation; we’ve got that in spades. But through businesses taking action.

The robotics revolution is happening globally, right now. The question for Scotland is whether our businesses will participate in it quickly enough to capture the opportunity – and to stop companies like Kingdom from becoming cautionary tales.

Stewart Miller is chief executive of the National Robotarium, the UK’s centre for robotics and AI, at Heriot-Watt University