Keep On Moving: KUKA Celebrates 125th Birthday

April 12, 2023

Celebrating 125 years of incredible innovation

In 1898, Johann Joseph Keller and Jakob Knappich founded an acetylene gas plant for street lighting, laying the foundation for an international technology group. 125 years later, KUKA is helping to shape the working world of the future worldwide – and is celebrating a special anniversary with customers, partners, and employees.

Circular knitting machines, garbage vehicles, travel typewriters: over the decades, KUKA has repeatedly reinvented itself completely, so that 125 years after its founding, only the telegram abbreviation “Keller und Knappich Augsburg”, or KUKA for short, reminds us of the company’s beginnings in Augsburg. 

Exactly 50 years ago, KUKA made history as a robotics pioneer with the world’s first industrial robot with six electromechanically driven axes – and since then has been making work and production more economical and easier with innovations in automation, digitalization, and robotics. 

Today, 15,000 dedicated KUKA employees around the globe are driving innovations in a wide variety of industries, even outside of the classic industry with intuitive solutions and quick and easy access to robotics and automation. That is our mission for the coming years.”

Peter Mohnen, CEO KUKA Group

Congratulations on the birthday

Timo Boll, world-class table tennis player and KUKA brand ambassador, also gratificates: “I have been a KUKAn for ten years now. Since then, we have had a lot in common: in robotics, as in table tennis, creativity and filigree work are in demand, we both and together like to move on Chinese territory and have been among the world’s best for many years. What has always been important to me, despite my many successes, is to remain a human being.

“And that’s why at KUKA, as a technology freak, it’s not just the robotics that excite me, but especially the people behind them, who, whenever I meet them, approach me with warmth, cordiality, humanity. That’s why I’m a KUKAn by conviction.”

Legendary duel: Timo Boll in a table tennis match against a KUKA robot.

Helping to shape a changing world

Climate change, skills shortages, global megatrends, and events are constantly changing our world. New technologies and innovation are helping us to master the challenges of a changing world. In keeping with this, KUKA is celebrating its anniversary under the motto “Keep on Moving” with numerous events and activities for employees, customers, partners, and the public.

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