Unmanned grocery store built to fight coronavirus at new Wuhan hospital

Companies roll out contactless services across China to help slow down spread of coronavirus

An unmanned grocery store is now open at Wuhan's new Huoshenshan hospital. The store adopts a cashier system built by Alibaba's Taoxianda, a fresh food delivery service offered by Taobao.

(Abacus is a unit of the South China Morning Post, which is owned by Alibaba.)

Taoxianda says a custom cashier system was built for the store within five hours, and it doesn't produce paper receipts so no staff is needed to put in new paper rolls. It also said a similar unmanned store will be launched at the upcoming Leishenshan hospital.

The coronavirus outbreak across China has spurred more companies to roll out contactless services to try to fight the spread. Food ordering apps are rolling out contactless delivery, allowing delivery men to place food in lockers or at certain designated areas to avoid interaction with customers. Hospitals are using robots to deliver drugs to patients to reduce contact with doctors. Hotels are also deploying robots to deliver food to people under quarantine.

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