Pandemic pushes Chinese tech giants to roll out more courier robots

A person inputs a code on a screen of an autonomous delivery vehicle by JD Logistics, the delivery arm of JD.com, as he tries to pick up goods, in Beijing, China. — Reuters

BEIJING: More than a thousand robots are set to join the delivery personnel ranks of Chinese behemoths Alibaba, Meituan and JD.com over the next year as the pandemic fuels demand for contactless services.

The firms expect to operate over 2,000 robots between them by 2022, up about four-fold from now, their executives said, encouraged also by falling costs of making robots.