Cainiao’s independently developed climbing robot, ZeeBot, officially made its grand entrance on April 15th this year and has now been seamlessly integrated into operations at the Machong logistics warehouse in Dongguan. This warehouse primarily caters to AliExpress's cross-border e-commerce endeavors, reaching over 40 countries in Europe with an impressive outbound volume of millions of units. ZeeBot is ingeniously crafted to meet the 'Z-axis' demands in logistics operations, facilitating effortless navigation within 3D spaces and flexible operations between any two designated points.

At present, the warehouse boasts 126 ZeeBot units, with roughly 70 actively engaged in operations. These robots are equipped with over 13,000 material bins and manage 1.5 million SKUs. The peak processing efficiency of a single robot stands at 25 bins per hour. With the warehouse operating round-the-clock, the overall human efficiency has doubled compared to a manual warehouse, and there has been a notable 20-30% improvement in efficiency over traditional automation solutions like CTO.

During the forthcoming '6.18' shopping extravaganza, all robots will be fully mobilized. The development cycle for ZeeBot spanned one year, with Cainiao producing the core components in-house. The cost has been meticulously controlled within RMB 100,000, and the cost of shelf materials is nearly on par with the price of commodity steel. The payback period for warehouses in China utilizing this robot is approximately 18 months, whereas it extends to 5-10 years overseas.

ZeeBot is deemed to be nearing its ultimate product form, devoid of any glaring product defects, yet there remains ample scope for performance enhancement. Its hardware design epitomizes ultimate flexibility in both walking and handling capabilities, while the software leverages AI technology to cater to the diverse business scenario needs of various industries.

Currently, the logistics warehouse still necessitates manual assistance for picking operations. To realize a fully unmanned warehouse, the challenge of mechanical arm picking coverage for dynamic SKUs must be surmounted. Hence, Cainiao is diligently developing a picking robot for workstations and concentrating on AI data training to overcome the hurdle of autonomous picking.

ZeeBot will be accorded top priority for optimization within Cainiao. For overseas markets, large-scale projects are slated to commence in the Netherlands and Spain in the first half of this fiscal year, with projects in the United States, Canada, and the Middle East currently under negotiation, and a project in Japan also pending confirmation. Domestically, three projects are underway in Guangzhou, with a project in Hong Kong poised for imminent delivery, and the anticipated contract value for this year holds great promise.