Hai Robotics has been picked to build what the company is calling the world's largest rack-climbing warehouse robot deployment, installing more than 1,500 HaiPick Climb robots for a leading European fashion retailer inside a single integrated 30,000 m² automated fulfillment center. The Shenzhen-based automation vendor announced the win on September 8, 2026, extending a multi-project partnership with a customer that already runs several HaiPick systems across Europe.
1,500 robots, 24,000 totes an hour
The new facility is engineered around Hai Robotics' upgraded HaiPick Climb double-deep configuration. It will hold roughly 1.2 million double-deep storage locations and target throughput of more than 24,000 totes per hour, aimed at absorbing peak-season online order surges without the multi-year build-out timelines associated with conventional AS/RS. The 30,000 m² footprint places it among the largest single-hall goods-to-person operations in European fashion e-commerce.
Scale test for the ACR category
Rack-climbing autonomous case-handling robots (ACRs) are still a young category compared with shuttle-based AS/RS or AMR fleets, but Hai Robotics said in September that HaiPick Climb has now passed 10,000 robots deployed across global customer projects. Concentrating more than 1,500 of them inside one control system stresses the software layer as much as the mechanical fleet — order management, path planning and workstation orchestration all have to hold up under a single site's load. Peter Guan, general manager of Hai Robotics EMEA, framed the win as a signal that ACRs are ready for the largest fulfillment programs retailers are planning through 2027.
Europe is the frontline for warehouse automation spend
The deployment lands as retailers and 3PLs across Europe pull forward automation investment to defend margins against labour cost inflation and same-day service commitments. Hai Robotics has been visibly ramping in the region, opening an EMEA innovation center in the Netherlands earlier in 2026 and expanding channel deals with integrators. The fashion win pushes the company deeper into that competitive set alongside Exotec, AutoStore, Ocado, and legacy players such as Dematic and Vanderlande — a market where multi-thousand-robot integrated systems are becoming the reference architecture for next-generation e-commerce hubs.
Reporting based on coverage from Hai Robotics, Cyprus Shipping News and Robotics & Automation News.