http://JD.com is building what could become the “4S stores” for robots.
The Chinese e-commerce giant is developing RoboBase facilities that cover almost everything a robot needs after leaving the factory — sales and delivery, maintenance, assembly, R&D and, importantly, real-world data collection.
http://JD.com has already started projects in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Wuxi, and plans to build 80 robot bases across China over the next five years.
The strategy makes sense for http://JD.com. Unlike many tech giants betting on AI models and computing power, JD already has a massive logistics and warehouse network and more than 900,000 employees.
The idea is that once robots enter mass production, the bottleneck may no longer be building them, but delivering, maintaining and continuously improving them.