Robots replace waiters in China restaurant

The little robotic waiter wheels up to the table, raises its glass lid to reveal a steaming plate of local Shanghai-style crayfish and announces in low, mechanical tones, “Enjoy your meal.” The futuristic restaurant concept is the latest initiative in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba’s push to modernise service and retail in a country where robotics and artificial intelligence are increasingly being integrated into commerce.

Raising efficiency and lowering labour costs are the objectives at Alibaba’s “Robot.He” diners, where waiters have been replaced by robots about the size of microwave ovens, which roll around the dining room on table-high runways.

“In Shanghai, a waiter costs up to 10,000 yuan ($1,500) per month. That’s hundreds of thousands in cost every year. And two shifts of people are needed,” said Cao Haitao, the Alibaba product manager who developed the concept.

“But we don’t need two shifts for robots and they are on duty every day.” The diners are attached to Alibaba’s new Hema chain of semi-automated supermarkets, where grocery shoppers fill their “carts” on a mobile app and have the merchandise brought to them at checkout via conveyor tracks on the ceiling, or delivered straight to their homes.