A Chinese worker loads the goods at Sam's club, the first branch of a Wal-Mart owned store in the capital on December 9, 2004 in Beijing, China. The world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc, says its inventory of stock produced in China is expected to hit U.S. $18 billion this year, keeping the annual growth rate of over 20 per cent consistent over two years. Cancan Chu/Getty Images
Walmart is considering a massive investment of $200 million in autonomous forklifts to improve its warehouse operations.
According to sources cited by Yahoo Finance, the retail giant plans to deploy self-driving forklifts from Fox Robotics in its distribution centers to streamline the movement of goods.
This move will be part of Walmart's strategy to automate more of its supply chain, aiming to increase efficiency and reduce labor costs.
The company has already invested $25 million in Fox Robotics and is looking to potentially purchase hundreds of these forklifts. The rollout would occur in stages over several years, depending on the performance of the "FoxBots."
Walmart spokesperson Camille Dunn confirmed that the company had piloted the technology and would add at least 19 FoxBots to four facilities as part of an ongoing evaluation process. This investment underlines Walmart's commitment to automation as it strives to stay competitive against rivals like Amazon, with VCPost also noting that they competed with Amazon's Prime Day through deal sales.
Analysts predict that Walmart's focus on automation and artificial intelligence could add $20 billion to its profit by fiscal 2029.
This latest initiative follows Walmart's previous deal with robotics vendor Symbotic to implement automation in 42 distribution centers, further showing the retailer's aggressive push towards advanced technological solutions.
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