Robots invite you to have a cup of tea

Li Huacheng and Tong Wangyue

AN unmanned store in Nanxiang Economic City — “My Girl × Gongboshi” — is attracting attention, with all its services, including reception, ordering and tea making, offered by robots.

The store is jointly operated by My Girl Technology Co Ltd and Gongboshi Robot Technology Co Ltd. Here, each robot can produce two cups of milk tea in a minute.

“Artificial intelligence technology is combined with new retailing industry. The robot can retrieve formula, process scheduling, mix materials, make tea, seal cups and deliver the tea according to the order made on a customer’s mobile phone app,” said Gu Xiaoyi who is in charge of the AI shop.

Intelligent scheduling and automatic operation ensure the quality control of the drinks and reduce the labor cost.

“We hope to draw citizens’ attention to AI by promoting our experience store,” said Gu.

The first My Girl × Gongboshi unmanned intelligent store took only a month from early preparations to opening.

Not long ago, Nanxiang robot industrial park in Nanxiang Economic City was officially renamed as Northern Hongqiao Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial Park, focusing on intelligent manufacturing and better empowering new retailing enterprises with industry-university-research cooperation.

At present, 15 intelligent manufacturing enterprises and nearly 200 enterprises from AIrelated fields have settled in the industrial park.

With the support of big data technology, an enterprise in the park has set a goal to install breakfast vending machines across the country within five years.