Hi folks. And welcome.

Question: Is it okay with everyone if we talk about 2024?

I know it’s still October of 2023, but so much is at the ready for 2024 now that it seems a shame not to give the upcoming new year some mega attention.

Okay, deal. Let’s do it.

Welcome again to This Is Robotics, episode #25, October of 2023. I’m Tom Green, your host and companion as we take a robotics look forward at the upcoming New Year of 2024.

The word in the air and on the streets for 2024 is LOGISTICS. Yes, warehouses large and small, especially the small ones, DCs, and last-mile micro-warehouses have been in the news lately.

And if you go back a few months, all the way to Walmart’s big meeting, big things have been brewing for a while.

So, without more ado, Happy New Year 2024.

From the Walmart shareholders meeting back in May, it was announced that Walmart was going all-in for robots and automation for 42 distribution centers in the U.S. and Canada.

The lucky vendor is Symbotic, who Walmart has been working with for 4 years.

That news got the juices flowing because a few months later SoftBank and the aforementioned Symbotic agreed to partner for a new offering called GreenBox to sell WaaS…Warehouse as a Service.

That was followed by SoftBank and its secretive Project R squirreling around for even more of this purported new $500 billion market.

Which was followed by old friend Amazon, rolling out its new automation giant, Sequoia.

Then, halfway around the world, India for 2024 will use logistics during the build-out of Grade A warehouses, as well as to use logistics for nation-building for the country as a whole.

In fact, the Asian Century that was last seen in China, is on the move away from East Asia and about to take up residence in India. As the late Swedish scientist and demographer Hans Rosling said: “In the past, economic growth was driving demographics, and now it's the other way around.” Demographics is driving economic growth. And nowhere is that more in evidence than in India. India, with over 36,000 warehouses, is going to have a very interesting 2024.

Then we have an announcement to make. This Is Robotics and its parent company Asian Robotics Review, have a new birth announcement to make. Our family this month is growing bigger. We are launching our newest website Robo AI News.com (roboainews.com), which will specialize in rounding up, sorting through, and artfully displaying the best news on robotics and artificial intelligence (AI).

News that specifically heralds the convergence of robotics and AI…and our call to action for everyone in robotics with the ability to contribute to Get On Our Wall. Send us your best in the ongoing robotics/AI convergence and we’ll publish it…and promote it and you throughout our family of online publications. Here again is the link. Take a peek: Robo AI News.

The Asian Century: Emphasis, India