JD.com plans to make courier robots smarter by enabling them to ‘talk’ to lifts, ascend towers

JD.com, China’s second biggest e-commerce services provider, is working with major lift manufacturers to figure out how its courier robots could communicate machine-to-machine so that they can deliver to flats in tower blocks.

If robots can navigate slopes and climb stairs, the friendly delivery man, or woman, as we know them today would disappear to be replaced by machines, according to Richard Liu Qiangdong, the founder and chief executive of JD.com.

Logistics companies have been automating their processes for years, from post offices installing sorting machines to e-commerce companies developing unstaffed warehouses.

JD.com is also developing drones that can take off and land vertically, for use in deliveries to remote locations. These drop-offs cost five times the cost of delivering in a major city like Tianjin, where Liu was delivering his speech at the 2nd World Intelligence Congress on Wednesday.

Vertical take-offs and landings reduce the cost of building runways, according to Liu. “I believe AI brings a lot of benefits. For example, we make robots … and the ‘courier brothers’ can stay at the office to control the robot for product delivery,” he said.