At Alibaba's Futuristic Hotel, Robots Deliver Towels and Mix Cocktails

A hotel that Chinese multinational conglomerate Alibaba opened in China last month utilizes robots and a suite of other high-tech tools that the company says drastically reduce the hotel's cost of human labor and eliminate the need for guests to interact with others.

The 290-room "FlyZoo" hotel is an incubator for technology Alibaba wants to sell to the hotel industry in the future; it also serves as an opportunity to showcase Alibaba's proficiency in artificial intelligence (AI).

FlyZoo's guests can check in via face scanners; visitors with a Chinese national ID can scan their faces using their smartphones for advance check-in.

Projects like the hotel are designed to develop AI and other high-tech expertise to propel Alibaba's e-commerce revenue growth, and also foster new areas of business at a time when e-commerce revenue growth rates are slowing.

From Reuters
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