FANUC

A Japanese giant in industrial robots and CNC systems, one of the “Big Four” of industrial robotics.

FANUC is a Japanese company headquartered in Oshino, Yamanashi Prefecture, which grew out of Fujitsu's numerical-control division in the 1950s and became independent in 1972 under founder Seiuemon Inaba. Its main business is CNC (computer numerical control) systems that control machine tools, industrial robots, and factory automation equipment; its signature yellow robot arms are found throughout auto and electronics factories, and it is grouped with ABB, KUKA, and Yaskawa as one of the “Big Four” of industrial robotics. It is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. It represents the traditional “teach-and-playback” camp of industrial robots, but has recently begun adopting embodied-AI technology: in May 2026 it announced a partnership with Google to have AI agents operate its robots, deepened its collaboration with NVIDIA by integrating Isaac Sim into its own offline simulation software ROBOGUIDE, and demonstrated dual-arm clothes-folding via imitation learning using the GR00T N model; that September it released an AI agent for welding.

ExampleMost of the rows of yellow six-axis welding robots on an auto-body assembly line are FANUC machines.

Also called

FANUC Corporation

Related

Industrial Robot · Big Four of Industrial Robotics (FANUC, ABB, KUKA, Yaskawa) · Teach-and-Playback Programming · NVIDIA · NVIDIA Isaac Sim · NVIDIA Isaac GR00T N1 / N1.5 / N1.6 / N1.7

Sources

Wikipedia: FANUC
FANUC Strengthens Collaboration with NVIDIA (2026-05-15)

As of

2026-09