INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
People eating food at ROBOT.HE restaurant in Shanghai
(AFP)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efficiency and lowering labour costs are the objectives at Alibaba's "Robot.He" diners, where waiters have been
replaced by robots about the size of microwave ovens, which roll around the dining room on table-high runways."In Shanghai, a waiter costs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.This photo taken on July 30,
2018 shows a man (R) getting food from a robot at the ROBOT.HE restaurant in Shanghai
(AFP)"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.Alibaba now has 57 Hema markets in 13 Chinese cities, all of which
will eventually feature the robotic restaurants.Industry experts say they serve more as showcases of Alibaba's tech prowess than a serious
business model in a country where labour costs are relatively low.But the restaurants also typify the rapid adoption of new technologies in
a country where the government is increasingly using facial-recognition technology to police streets and identify law-breakers.Automation
other retailers have dispensed with cashiers, allowing customers to order and pay for their desired merchandise, which is often handed over
by a robot.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." (AFP)Alibaba's e-commerce rival JD.com has announced plans to open 1,000
restaurants by 2020 in which food will be prepared and served by robots.JD.com and others are also working to incorporate airborne drones
into their delivery networks.The movement could help companies reduce costs as growth rates in China's e-commerce boom begin to
plateau."Before, everyone was all going for rapid expansion
Now the growth is gone and everyone has to focus on improving their operations," said Jason Ding, a China retail expert with Bain
Company."Operation is all about cutting costs and providing better service
So these automated machine technologies, in the right place, can play a role there."At Robot.He, customers book tables and order entr#233;es
via apps, and the diner's novelty often draws long queues.Ma Yiwen, 33, brought nearly a dozen colleagues with her."We are all foodies and
we use our lunch time to try good food near our office
The idea of a robot delivering food to our table is very innovative so we wanted to see it ourselves," she said.The restaurant says
automation helps keep costs down, an additional lure for 20-year-old customer Ma Shenpeng, who comes once a week.This photo taken on July
30, 2018 shows a robot arm transferring food at ROBOT.HE restaurant in Shanghai."Normally for two to three people, a meal costs about
300-400 yuan, but here, all this table of food is just over 100 yuan," he said.Chinese AI advocates predict robots will someday perform a
range of mundane duties as living standards rise, from delivery to sweeping floors and providing companionship, particularly as China's
labour force has shrunk due to the recently relaxed one-child population control policy.But it's a delicate issue for Chinese policy-makers
due to the potential for human job losses, and the government is in the midst of a long-term push to develop the country's services industry
partly as a job creator, as manufacturing increasingly becomes mechanized.Wang Hesheng, a robotics professor at Shanghai's Jiaotong
University, said the cost of robots remains too high for widespread consumer use and that many companies were merely jumping on the
government's high-tech bandwagon.But robotics could spread if China labour costs continue to grow, he said."Maybe when labour costs rise
higher and higher, robots will balance out with humans," he said.(This story has not been edited by TheIndianSubcontinent staff and is
auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
