Amazon Expands Next-Generation Robotic Warehouses Beyond Mobile Rovers
Amazon's chief technologist reveals how the company is integrating advanced robotic arms and massive storage systems into its fulfillment centers. The retail giant currently operates over 750,000 robots across its U.S. network.
Amazon discusses the evolution of its fulfillment centers at the recent Delivering the Future event in Nashville, highlighting AI and computer vision rather than entirely new robotic systems. The tech giant currently deploys over 750,000 autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) across its U.S. facilities, a figure that matches last year's public count but only tells part of the story. These familiar wheeled systems, which trace their origins back to the 2012 Kiva Systems acquisition, form the foundation of Amazon's warehouse automation but share the floor with increasingly diverse machines.
Robotic arms represent the next largest category in Amazon's growing fleet, with systems like Robin, Cardinal, and Sparrow handling the complex tasks of sorting and stacking packages. The most significant addition to this ecosystem is Sequoia, an automated storage and retrieval system similar to those offered by competitors like AutoStore. After unveiling Sequoia last year and launching the first system at a Houston-area fulfillment center, Amazon is rapidly scaling this technology to improve warehouse efficiency.
The company now announces that a Sequoia system five times larger than the original is operating at the heart of an expanded fulfillment center in Shreveport, Louisiana. This massive warehouse spans over 3 million square feet and showcases how Amazon is shifting from simply adding more mobile robots to building dense, integrated automated infrastructure. Chief technologist Tye Brady emphasizes that this strategic integration of different robotic form factors is defining the next generation of Amazon's fulfillment operations.