Did you know the Census Bureau counts robots, too?

The U.S. Constitution requires the government to count the population every decade, in the form of the census. But that’s just people. As  part of its mission to count all things , the U.S. Census Bureau recently released new figures on capital expenditures. It turns out Americans spent more than $9.8 billion on robotic equipment in 2020.

The biggest pieces of that pie were purchased by the manufacturing, retail trade, social assistance and healthcare sectors.

While nearly half of the $9.8 billion was spent by the manufacturing sector, general medical and surgical hospitals invested more than $400 million alone, accounting for 83% of healthcare industry spending on robotics.

The Census Bureau has been collecting data on robotic equipment expenditures since 2018.