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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

JD.com

JD.com Just Opened its First XCafe Robot Restaurant in China

Earlier this year, Chinese company JD.com said that it planned on opening 1,000 robot-staffed restaurants across China by the year 2020. Well, now it has just 999 more to go as this past weekend, JD.com opened up the XCafe robot restaurant in Tianjin.

Pandaily reports that the new robo-restaurant is 400 square meters and seats up to 100 customers at a time. A combination of robots and artificial intelligence takes orders, prepares food, plates orders and serves meals. Humans aren’t completely out of the equation (ed. note: yet), as a handful are around to assist the robot cooks and refill ingredients.

As we’ve noted, robot restaurants are so hot right now. In China alone, Alibaba runs the Robot.he restaurant and Panasonic and Haidilao formed a joined venture and opened up the first of up to 5,000 robot hot pot restaurants. Here in the U.S. we have Spyce in Boston and the Creator burger joint down in San Francisco.

Worth noting just because of its potential to be a future clue from Puzzle Master Will Shortz: San Francisco is also home to robot coffee kiosk, Cafe X. Will we ever see an XCafe restaurant next to a Cafe X? (Sidenote to our sensitive readers, do not Google “XCafe.”)

There are a number of factors driving the growth of robot-run restaurants. First, robotics themselves are getting better, to the point where they can handle oddly-shaped and softer materials. Second, there is a shortage of workers for sectors like fast food here in the U.S. as well as in places like Japan, where an aging population is leading to labor shortages. Robots won’t burn themselves on a hot stove or fryer, and, as Haidilao pointed out, automation can make it much easier to scale your operations (not as much training, it’s consistent, more software driven results, etc.).

It’s also worth noting the aggressiveness with which Chinese companies are jumping into the robot restaurant business. Haidilao and JD.com together have 6,000 robot restaurants in the works. Spyce, Creator and Cafe X are going to have to fire up the robot factory to stay competitive.

JD.com Investment Puts Google in the Robot Restaurant Biz

Google announced today that it is investing $550 million into Chinese e-commerce company JD.com. Many of the takes surrounding the deal have focused on the access Google will get to the Chinese market (and JD to the American market), and how the deal is an attempt by Google to claw back some product search traffic from Amazon.

Yes, yes, yes. That’s all very important, but let’s take a moment to appreciate something else this investment means: Google is getting into the robot restaurant business! Kinda.

Earlier this month we wrote:

“…JD.com, China’s second largest e-commerce company, will open 1,000 restaurants completely staffed by robots by the year 2020. Though a location hasn’t been determined yet, the first of these robo-restaurants will open in August. It will be roughly 400 sq. meters (~4,300 sq. ft.) and will serve 40 dishes from around China, with customers ordering and paying by smartphone.”

But JD’s robot ambitions aren’t relegated to restaurants. As Axios wrote last week, JD “has built a big new Shanghai fulfillment center that can organize, pack and ship 200,000 orders a day. It employs four people — all of whom service the robots.”

That type of automation is certainly very Amazonian, and perhaps one that could be licensed here in the States much the same way Kroger bought into Ocadao’s robot warehouse technology.

The JD investment becomes even more interesting as it relates to Amazon when you consider the other relationships Google’s been forming. It partnered with Walmart last year for virtual assistant shopping. Just this month, Google partnered with European grocery giant Carrefour SA for online grocery shopping and same-day delivery in France.

Of course, back here at home, Google already has it’s own research efforts around robotics, as well as investments in food robot companies like Momentum Machines and Abundant Robotics.

Now, before you — well, I — get too excited over the idea of a JD robot restaurant host taking reservations from the human-sounding Google Duplex AI, Google’s investment in JD amounts to just 1 percent of the shopping site, and there are much bigger fish to robotically fry than a restaurant chain that hasn’t actually opened yet.

Alibaba and JD.com Releasing More Robots Across China

Two Chinese e-commerce giants are making separate moves that will see robots running packages around — and running restaurants — as automation continues to rise around the world.

First up: Alibaba just unveiled its new G Plus driverless delivery robot. According to The Verge, the robot can carry multiple packages of different sizes (or fresh food!), and can travel at up to 9.3 miles per hour. The robot uses LIDAR to build a 3D map and, if it detects people, it will slow down to 6.2 miles per hour. Upon arrival, it can either drop off the package or users can get their delivery through a PIN code. The G Plus is currently in use at Alibaba’s headquarters and will go into commercial production by the end of this year.

Alibaba also showed off a smart locker that can be installed outside a user’s apartment. The Cainiao uses facial recognition to unlock and can expand to accommodate different sized packages. What’s also pretty cool is that the temperature of the locker can be controlled remotely so a pizza delivered could be held warm, or produce kept cold, until retrieved.

Elsewhere, Nikkei Asian Review writes that JD.com, China’s second largest e-commerce company, will open 1,000 restaurants completely staffed by robots by the year 2020. Though a location hasn’t been determined yet, the first of these robo-restaurants will open in August. It will be roughly 400 sq. meters (~4,300 sq. ft.) and will serve 40 dishes from around China, with customers ordering and paying by smartphone.

Nikkei also points out that rising labor costs and rents are putting economic pressures on restaurants in China. Combine that with an impending labor shortage and robots are likely to play an increasingly important role around the country. But it’s not just in China; it’s projected that robots and other forms of automation could replace up to 66 million human workers around the world, according to a study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

In France, EKIM just raised €2.2 million to build its robot pizza restaurants. Here in the U.S. we already have a variety of robots working across various foodservice sectors: we have Starship’s delivery robots, standalone kiosks like Briggo serving coffee or Blendid whipping up smoothies, Penny the table-bussing robot, Flippy the burger-making robot, and even Spyce Kitchen, the fully autonomous robot restaurant in Boston.

Humans, however, are waking up to all the implications robots will bring about. San Francisco put the brakes on robot deliveries in that city, and in Las Vegas, members of the Culinary Workers Union voted to go on strike in a bid to get more protections against being replaced by robots.

If you want to to know what’s happening with food robots and artificial intelligence, be sure to subscribe to our Automat podcast. Each week we talk with experts from around the world who are building the next generation of automation.