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Automation for the people: How cobots at work help humans with tasks

Robotics has dominated manufacturing since the 1970s. But now technological developments, including the addition of artificial intelligence, promise to unleash a new industrial revolution. Will the technology break out of the silo of high-end applications?

If augmenting workflows with machine intelligence has jumped from the call centre and office to the factory, the next step could be toward areas even more crucial to life. Picture: Getty

Known at home and abroad as a centre for information technology, Ireland is perhaps not seen as a manufacturing nation. That is not to say that there is no production in the country, of course. Certainly, Ireland is no Germany, China or US, but it is home to manufacturing production, from pharmaceuticals and medical devices to food and even industrial products, and the numbers prove it.

National industrial production amounted to €127 billion in 2020 ...