Amazon.com Inc's (NASDAQ: AMZN) Australian branch is ready to move into the country's most extensive warehouse, involving a fleet of robots to help operate a facility of about 29 soccer pitches.
The 209,000 square meters (2,249,657 square feet) four-level fulfillment center will likely be complete in 2025 and can house up to 25 million small items sold, Bloomberg reports.
At Craigieburn Logistics Estate to Melbourne's north, Amazon's facility can potentially create 2,000 jobs alongside the robots. It can create an additional 2,000 jobs during the construction and fit-out phase.
As per Amazon, the robots will work collaboratively with employees by moving 'pods' of inventory to them, reducing the time and effort.
The new facility is 9,000 square meters bigger than Amazon's existing Western Sydney robotics site, which opened in 2022.
Australia's biggest pension fund, AustralianSuper, owns the warehouse, and LOGOS managed and developed it.
Unlisted assets like warehouses became prominent in Australia's A$3.5 trillion ($2.3 trillion) pension industry as consumers shifted to online shopping.
In 2022, Amazon Amazon showcased Sparrow, a robotic arm that harnesses computer vision technology to identify and pick up small products.
It said the Sparrow robot is the first capable of detecting, selecting, and handling individual products in our inventory.
Amazon first introduced robotics into its warehouses in 2012 with the $775 million acquisition of Kiva.
Price Action: AMZN shares traded higher by 0.33% at $140.40 premarket on the last check Wednesday.