From CES To Factory Floors: Robotics, Labor, And The New Supply Chain, with Shawn DuBravac

CES signals are loud and clear: AI is no longer a feature, it’s the infrastructure layer crowding out capital, capacity, and attention across the electronics value chain. I sat down in Washington DC with Global Electronics Association Chief Economist Shawn DuBravac to unpack how that surge touches everything from storage and memory to semiconductors and factory planning, and why even companies “not in AI” are feeling the squeeze. The conversation traces a bigger shift too—mature tech moving from proof to scale—where autonomy is judged by fleet size and uptime, not lab demos.

Robotics takes center stage as physical AI edges toward real work. We compare humanoids that can dance with systems ready for prime-time tasks like palletizing and truck unloading, and we map realistic timelines of 36 to 48 months for broader manufacturing deployment as dexterity and perception improve. With labor shortages set to widen through 2030, we dig into how smart plants rebalance capital and labor, use robots to close repetitive loops, and free people for quality, test, and exceptions. The result is a practical playbook: start narrow, integrate well, and scale when capability and cost cross the threshold.

Zooming out, we chart a K-shaped industrial landscape. AI-adjacent and defense spending push ahead while housing, construction, and parts of agriculture struggle; Southeast Asia, Mexico, India, and Vietnam attract fresh capacity as Europe weighs EV ambitions against automotive sovereignty. Tariffs have shifted from crisis to cadence as EMS providers rewire networks, absorb costs, and—where needed—pass through pricing. We also tackle M&A’s role in securing U.S. capacity and strategic footholds, the financing mix behind AI builds, and why hyperscaler cash flows temper bubble fears even as demand risks remain.

Threading it all together is data. Annual PDFs aren’t enough when decisions can’t rely on a rear-view mirror. We share how a global, real-time data backbone—built through partnerships and internal analytics—turns signals into guidance members can act on: where to invest, which lines to automate, how to hedge trade exposure, and when to break ground on new facilities. If you’re navigating AI’s crowding effect, timing your robotics ramp, or weighing consolidation, this conversation offers the markers to move with confidence. Enjoy the episode, then subscribe, share with your team, and leave a review to help others find the show.

EMS@C-Level is hosted by global inspection leaders Koh Young (https://www.kohyoung.com) and Global Electronics Association (https://www.electronics.org)

You can see video versions of all of the EMS@C-Level pods on our YouTube playlist.

Transcript

Setting The Stage At GEA

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 0:07

Hello, I'm Philip Stoughton. I am here at the Global Electronics Association, and we're here in Glorious Washington. Beautiful sunny day, but a bit chilly. I'm joined by Sean DeBravak, Chief Economist. Sean, I wanted to divide our conversation into different parts, and I wanted to start with Sean the Futurist. You're at CES, you've been talking to a lot of other people since then. I wanted to just look at what some of the big takeaways from that event were and really how you see that impacting trends that are really going to be driven down to the electronic manufacturing supply chain. What were your biggest takeaways?

AI Everywhere And Its Ripple Effects

Shawn DuBravac, Chief Economist, Global Electronics Association 0:44

Yeah, I mean, obviously you you you see AI everywhere. Yeah. So AI embedded into everything. And that ripple effect is being felt everywhere. You see it in the storage market, you see it in the memory market, you see it in the semiconductor market, it it's crowding out other areas. And so even if you're not in AI, and I think that's the kind of the new realization in 2026, like even if you aren't building for AI and you're not in that supply chain, you're being impacted by what's happening there. The build-out you're seeing is is incredible. And so that's crowding out investment in other places. It's crowding out uh you know a number of things. So I think that was a key focus. I think there were another thing around just technology really coming to a level of maturity that we hadn't seen in the past. So if you take a look at something like self-driving cars, it's less about is this going to be a viable market? Is this technology going to work? And now it's much more focused on let's scale this technology, let's, you know, you see companies like Waymo doubling their fleet size. And so they're expanding the the um they're expanding you know the reach of the technology. And so that there is, I think, an important shift we've seen happen there as well.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 2:09

Yeah. I when I when I looked at some of the stuff that was going on, I wasn't at the event, but I was looking at at a lot of it remotely. I I thought it was really interesting. The the AI thing, AI is everywhere, and as you say, it crowds stuff out, and it's actually crowding stuff out, not just in terms of the demand side, but also the supply side of the supply chain.

Tech Matures: Scaling Over Proving

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 2:29

You look at, you know, the conversations that are going on between Taiwan Semiconductor and NVIDIA, for example, at the moment, very impactful for all of the other segments, whether you're in that segment or not. But also some other technologies. It was interesting to see a lot of companies excited by humanoid robot and watching some of it, some of it was a little bit on the comical side, some of it was incredibly impressive. Is that is that a sector that you think is gonna be an

Humanoid Robots Hype To Reality

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 2:58

inflection maybe sometime in the next five years?

Shawn DuBravac, Chief Economist, Global Electronics Association 3:01

Yeah, definitely a huge focus on physical AI, robotics. I I counted over 40 different humanoid robots at CES. So definitely a big push into humanoids, but not just humanoids, showing up in lots of other spaces. Uh, you've seen recent announcements from companies like Tesla that are taking EV production capacity offline to fill it with humanoid uh capacity. And so there is a big push there. And to your point, the spectrum of what those humanoids are capable of doing was very large. There were some that are dancing in the hallways, and then there are others that really look like they're ready for prime time manufacturing deployment. And obviously, there were other companies that were like Agility Robotics that already has deployed their humanoid robots in some manufacturing facilities, and they've got some pilots going. So there is a big spread there. What I think what I noticed most in that humanoid robotic form factor was there there were a lot of companies like the Bosches of the world that were focusing on improving the dexterity, improving the capabilities of these robots. So it isn't just like, okay, here's a robot in humanoid form factor, it's ready to go, but really improving the capability of those robots. And so I think we're still earlier than uh you know than the robot manufacturers want us to believe.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 4:32

Yeah.

Shawn DuBravac, Chief Economist, Global Electronics Association 4:33

I think we probably still have several months and several years until we start to see wide deployment. But you look at some of their time horizons and they're looking out 36 months, 48 months, uh, where you start to see humanoid robots capable of being deployed in manufacturing uh environments. And even if they're wrong by half, you know, you're still looking at the next six to eight years seeing robots that that could be deployed in these environments. Price points coming down significantly. And so um I I think there's still a lot that can happen there.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 5:10

Yeah, and I think that that that'll bleed into um you know the domestic market as

Labor Gaps And Robotic Deployment

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 5:15

well. But when you look at it from a from a manufacturing point of view, you've got AI as this huge disruptor, it's manufacturing, uh it's it's impacting manufacturing capacity, it's impacting manufacturing technology, how we do things, it's impacting the manufacturing supply chain. And then you start to bring that AI into robotics and it is impacting the talent requirements on the on the factory floor. So there is a huge amount of disruption that is happening as that as that all comes comes down the line. Do you think the there was probably quite a good number of larger EMS companies there? Do you think the electronic manufacturing industry really understands that or they're looking for more guidance and leadership on um on how they should respond to these changes?

Shawn DuBravac, Chief Economist, Global Electronics Association 6:04

I think it we're still very early on in training robots and then deploying robots, but I do think that every manufacturer should be looking at it because we're not able to fill all the manufacturing jobs that we have. In the US, you know, by some estimates we're uh several hundred thousand workers short, we're going to be several million workers short as you carry that trend out to 2030, 2035. And so you you do start to run into an environment where you don't have the labor you want, and so you do have to start to reconfigure what your capital labor ratios look like. At the same time, the robots presumably will have become more capable, and so you'll be able to deploy them in more environments. And so I, you know, I think we're still very early on, but I I think we got an early glimpse that shows us where that future is coming for

Global Pace: China And Beyond

Shawn DuBravac, Chief Economist, Global Electronics Association 7:01

sure.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 7:01

Yeah, and you see some really interesting examples when you look at China, for example, the largest EMS company in the world employs over a million people. So robotics is obviously important in their strategy. They also have the muscle to be able to develop and build their own, build their own technology, and we hear different reports out of companies of that scale. So I think, you know, much as within the US market and within CES, we might be seeing these interesting robotics that look human and um, you know, have got facial features and dexterity and all those kind of things. I have this kind of vision in China that they're actually just, you know, deploying stuff on the factory floor that gets the job done regardless of what it looks like. And yeah, I I think things are moving perhaps at a different pace there. Do you see that, or is that something that you can only get through anecdote and the odd news report?

Shawn DuBravac, Chief Economist, Global Electronics Association 8:02

Yeah, I mean I think China is facing lots of headwinds. I I think there's a you know fragility there that they're trying to manage as well. I think uh where robotics make sense, you you know, they're they're probably looking at deploying it. I think we see a lot of at especially at the beginning of the year at CS, we saw a lot of humanoid form factors. But we also saw a lot of robotic arms, we saw a lot of other, you know, uh robotics showing up in a system. So if you think about palletizing boxes or unloading uh a truck,

EMS Goes Global And Talent Impact

Shawn DuBravac, Chief Economist, Global Electronics Association 8:37

like you can see where robots start to show up in there in other form factors. And so um I think it will really depend on how much flexibility and agility a manufacturer's trying to build in a line. And and where I think robots will be most helpful is like when you're just trying to close a circle of production, when you're trying to close, you know, move maybe it's moving packages from one end of the facility to another end of the facility. Like if you can just accelerate that piece and free up labor to be focused on other things, yeah, um, then I think there's a lot of great opportunity there. And so I'm not, you know, I'm not so convinced that other countries are further ahead than others. I think probably other manufacturers are further ahead than others, where they already have a lot of automation or they already have a lot of robotic systems to think in that the mindset of, okay, we're gonna extend our robotic systems on to the floor in new ways, is more comfortable for them. And so I think that's where the catch-up really has to take place. It's smaller manufacturers, maybe smaller EMS facilities who have been doing things the same way for a very long time, that now need to think about okay, what if we were to add robotics into this system, what does that start to look like?

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 9:59

Yeah, and to embrace that and to use that as a differentiator and a mitigator to those talent issues you speak of. And I think what's interesting is you know, when when we hear people talking about the AI race or the autom the robotics race between different um countries, when I look within our industry and I look within the association, we're we tend to think totally globally anyway. You know, if you think of any of the large EMS companies, they're deployed in every one of those consumer markets. Um so for them, it it doesn't matter where it comes from. They'll they'll embrace it and they'll build with their and they'll use it as a building block for their business.

2026 Outlook: K-Shaped Industry

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 10:37

Taking your futureist hat on and often putting on your economist hat, where are we as we um as we kick off 2026 in terms of the trends, in terms of how the uh how the market's feeling about uh about this year?

Shawn DuBravac, Chief Economist, Global Electronics Association 10:53

I I think you've started the year on a on a relatively strong note, and the the outlook is that the economy here in the US is probably gonna be a little stronger than it was last year. Uh you you still have this, we talk a lot about the K-shaped economy when it with respect to consumers. I think you also see it in the industrial side of the economy. A lot of the growth has been driven by AI investment and other things around the AI investment. And so uh if you are not in AI supply chains, if you're not in defense, if you're in some of these other areas, if you're in, for example, housing, if you're in construction, like those have been harder hit. Agriculture, even pieces of that market have been harder hit because of all of the trade uncertainty. And so there is a, I think, um, again, a distribution of how you feel about the state of the world is dependent upon which market you're in. We're not seeing all markets uh thrive at the same rate. And so uh I think that's important to note. But I think outside that you do see I think some some good tailwinds pushing us forward. Now there's still a lot of risk. There's risk that uh you know too much investment is going into AI and there's not the demand to keep up, and that that could reverse quickly. Uh there's risk that the way we're financing that demand isn't that, yeah. A lot of debt financing, a lot of private credit. So sometimes we don't have as good a vis visibility into those markets. I think to me, what's most interesting about AI is a lot of the big hyperscalers do have positive cash flow. Yeah and so they're funding a lot of that through their own uh you know, their cash flow. So I'm a little less worried about that bubble discussion. Yeah. About the bubble discussion. Um at the same time, if they perceive that demand is slowing, then they will cut back investment. And you know, that could be the difference between a thriving economy and one that's in recession.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 13:01

Yeah.

Shawn DuBravac, Chief Economist, Global Electronics Association 13:01

When you look at the rest of the world, you you continue to have pockets of strength in Southeast Asia. Mexico has benefited uh because of the shifts in in trade. Um India continues to do very well, Vietnam, you know, Malaysia, other places continue

Risks, Financing, And Hyperscalers

Shawn DuBravac, Chief Economist, Global Electronics Association 13:18

to do very well, and China has um has suffered as a result of some of the shifts in trade with the US. Obviously, they've reallocated some of their um of their trade flows, their exports to other parts of the world, Europe being a big one. Um and I think Europe is also reassessing what type of relationship they want, especially when it comes to uh EVs. I think Europe struggles with this idea of that we've got these green initiatives, so we want more EVs. China would be the natural supplier of those EVs because they're supplying them at a much reduced cost. Yeah.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 13:56

And at the same time, are they willing to sacrifice some of their manufacturing base and the automotive industry, which, you know, if you're a if you're a German politician saying that you're giving up being a world leader in the automotive industry and you're swapping that for a dependence on China, would be a bitter pill for the uh for the electorate to swallow. Totally. So I I I think it's I think it's really challenging when you see those um those market shifts, and I think that is that is what's creating some of the uncertainty. A lot of the uncertainty, as you say, is around geopolitics and trade. And we spent a lot of last year having conversations that felt quite urgent about tariffs. And there was a sense that when I talked to EMS companies, they were looking for urgent solutions about tariffs. There's a sense now that this is just part of day-to-day life in the industry. We've got used to it, we're dealing with it, we have strategies, even though we don't know what's happening, we have, you know, what-if scenario strategies for every

Trade Shifts: Asia, Mexico, Europe

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 15:01

single outcome. And it's just, it feels like it's become a background thing that they just have to live with. Is that do you have that same sense?

Shawn DuBravac, Chief Economist, Global Electronics Association 15:08

Yeah, I think that's definitely true. I think what surprised us the most in 2025 was how quickly companies were able to react, how how much agility they showed for the ability to shift uh you know major parts of their supply chain around making adjustments. Obviously, that um took a lot of time and attention, and I think it probably in the end probably sacrificed some focus on innovation when you've got engineers that are focused on setting up a new plant as opposed to building the next product you're gonna sell, then that can kind of slow new ideas coming to fruition. Um but I I do think we showed a tremendous amount of agility. We also saw a lot of cost absorption in the supply chain, and so consumers didn't get, you know, they weren't impacted by the full extent of tariffs because all throughout the supply chain costs were being absorbed. I I'm not sure that will continue forever. There's only uh so much absorption that can take place. And so I think companies are have re-established what those new supply chains are going to look like, what those new relationships are gonna look like, and where flows are going to take place. Yeah. And then they're, you know, kind of recalibrating production around that.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 16:26

So yeah. I think that yeah, I've been impressed with their agility. They've done a really good job. And I think during this whole process, there's been an assessment of their global footprint of what the right EMS model is. And and it it's impacted various different parts of what they do. One of the biggest impacts it's had is it's it's skewed the MA market. So we've maybe seen more MA activity last year than we expected. Um on a previous very high year for MA and activity. That seems to be continuing. The interest from private equity in the EMS industry is still very high, which I think is actually a very positive note and uh, you know, shows some shows some confidence in the industry. But obviously, MA for geographical purposes as well as for capacity and for scale has been impacted by tariffs. Do you expect another big MA year? Do you think there's more of that consolidation coming down the track?

Shawn DuBravac, Chief Economist, Global Electronics Association 17:26

I think we could continue

Tariffs Normalize And Agility

Shawn DuBravac, Chief Economist, Global Electronics Association 17:28

to see more consolidation, especially around, to your your point, geographic lines. There's still a lot of uh push to build more manufacturing, both capacity and capabilities in the US. Yeah. And so I think MA would be a natural way of gaining footholds or strengthening, improving, increasing footholds in the US. And so we could see more of that uh happening in, you know, not only in the US, but also in other parts of the world. Um I think you know, how that new production comes online. MA sometimes can be fastest, but I think also we'll see new capacity come online in in the US as there continues to be interest there, especially if it looks like the demand is sustainable. Like that's always inhibited new investment in manufacturing capacity. Is is the demand going to be here? And so I think the next step is we do need better clarity of what environment manufacturers are operating in, what's the policy environment look like. And I think if if we do see a settling there, then you will see you know a commitment in 2026 for for new plants, new facilities. Yeah.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 18:43

Yeah. When you talk about clarity, I think it plays quite nicely into what I wanted to discuss next, which was the role of the Global Electronics Association, the whole picture of providing insight, providing data, you kind of sit at the top of this kind of pyramid of data that is provided by the Global Electronics Association. You're very much looking at, you know, the government trends and the and the larger trends in the industry. But what I've seen you build more

M&A For Capacity And Geography

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 19:12

and more is this really stable foundation of data, having developed the partnership with DDevice in Europe, developing um partnerships elsewhere, building up the muscle you have internally for bringing that data together. That must be really pleasing for you to be able to support your view of what's going on in the world and opinion with that, with that hard data. Is that something that is consciously being done and you think is really important as part of the member offering?

Shawn DuBravac, Chief Economist, Global Electronics Association 19:44

It's definitely something that we are consciously doing. It's something we feel like we've just started to do, that we're going to be doing a lot more of, but having that that hard data uh to provide decision making, I think, is important. I think the other thing is to recognize that unlike other associations, we very much are globally focused. It is a global industry that we are supporting, and so we we need global data. So you mentioned uh you know the partnerships we've we've created with Dieter Weiss and others in Europe to start to build out that data program, to strengthen and build out US data programs, and then to also extend that to the other regions that we operate in Japan, India, uh the you know, the rest of Asia, to continue to expand uh what's available so that we can give real-time visibility into market shifts.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 20:36

Yeah, and I think that you know that that real-time element is really important. I think what we've seen in the past is people focus too much on these annual reports, and these annual reports coming six months after the end of a given year, and it feels like, okay, that's great data, but we kind of remember and have almost forgotten that, and we're moving on to a new disruption, a new demand. You really want to have that data at your fingertips and

Policy Clarity And New Plants

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 21:01

as much in real time as possible, and that anything that you as an association can do for that is going to be really valuable. Are you finding members are asking more questions about what's happening in real time, not just from a point of government advocacy and what's going on in terms of um, you know, tariffs and um administration stuff coming down the line, but also in terms of what's been happening in specific markets in the last quarter rather than a year ago.

Shawn DuBravac, Chief Economist, Global Electronics Association 21:32

Yeah, I think members are looking for information to help them make decisions. And they want to be able to make those decisions not using the rear view mirror. They want to be able to look out forward and see like what's coming and how do we prepare for it and and uh you know, and how do we build greater agility into our operations? And so, as much as we can deliver data that helps with that, whether it's uh demand by by different sectors, whether it's what the geographic Distribution of production looks like, whether it's even just looking at,

Building A Real-Time Data Backbone

Shawn DuBravac, Chief Economist, Global Electronics Association 22:04

you know, helping helping members better understand their cost structure. What does labor look like? We started this conversation. Yeah. Benchmarks, we started this conversation talking about robotics, like where does that fit in into your plan? So we are definitely being very member focused and member centric. And so as members come to us and say, hey, can you help us find data on this so that we can make better decisions? That's definitely where we're starting.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 22:32

Yeah, and yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head there, Sean. What you do a really nice job of is actually not just providing that data, but turning that data into insight. And it's only when it's insight and in theory, it becomes advice that you really add value. So keep doing what you're doing. Thanks so much for your time, and always a pleasure.

Shawn DuBravac, Chief Economist, Global Electronics Association 22:50

Yeah, glad to see you in Washington and uh come back soon.