Name: HaiPick Climb (HaiClimber)
Brand: Hai Robotics

Who's exposed

Jobs in the threat radius

warehouse picker
order fulfillment associate
inventory stock clerk

Deployment status

Crossed 10,000 HaiClimber robots under contract across 12 countries in Asia, Europe, North America, South America, and Australia as of August 28, 2026, per the manufacturer's own announcement — corroborated by independent trade-press syndication (Nasdaq, IT Business Net). Named customers include ANTA, Panasonic, Arvato, ITOCHU, METTLER TOLEDO, and True Protein, spanning apparel, e-commerce, healthcare, retail, automotive, grocery, and consumer electronics. Development began in 2022; HaiPick Climb had its global product launch in 2025. Eight customers have already expanded existing deployments or selected the system again for a new site — a repeat-buy signal the manufacturer highlights as more meaningful than the raw unit count. Hai Robotics, founded in Shenzhen in 2016 with a North American headquarters in Alpharetta, Georgia, positions HaiClimber as a leading vendor in the case-handling ACR (Autonomous Case-handling Robot) niche, distinct from bin-to-person AMRs like Locus or Geek+.

When this hits the labor market

Over 1-3 years, expect greenfield e-commerce and third-party logistics warehouses — new builds where racking can be designed around a climbing robot from the start — to adopt fastest, since HaiClimber's pitch is explicitly lower infrastructure cost and faster install than a fixed AS/RS. Over 3-5 years, the retrofit case broadens into existing distribution centers as more vendors compete on install speed rather than raw throughput. The job function most exposed is the walking-and-fetching half of warehouse picking — travel time to a bin, not the skilled handling that happens once product is in hand. That travel time was never the trainable, skilled part of the role; it is usually the first slice of a job to go once a goods-to-person system is installed.

Ten thousand robots, twelve countries, and almost no headlines

Hai Robotics doesn’t get the press attention of the humanoid makers in this catalog, and that’s exactly the point. In August 2026 the company announced its HaiPick Climb system had crossed 10,000 HaiClimber robots under contract across 12 countries — apparel, e-commerce, healthcare, retail, automotive, grocery, and consumer electronics customers, spanning Asia, Europe, North America, South America, and Australia. Named accounts include ANTA, Panasonic, Arvato, ITOCHU, METTLER TOLEDO, and True Protein. None of that made front-page trade press. It didn’t need to — the milestone speaks in units shipped, not demo videos.

What a climbing robot actually replaces

HaiClimber is a goods-to-person shuttle that does what its name says: it climbs racking directly, rather than relying on fixed conveyors or a separate crane. One system can pack up to 45,000 totes into a 1,000 sqm footprint using double-deep storage, move up to 4,000 totes an hour out of that same footprint, and get an order to a picking station in under two minutes. A single site can run a fleet of up to 3,000 of them, self-charging around the clock. The pitch against a traditional automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) is blunt: no rigid steel infrastructure, no year-long install, a system that scales by adding robots rather than pouring concrete.

The job that disappears first is the walking part of warehouse picking — the minutes an associate spends traveling to a bin rather than handling product once they’re there. HaiClimber doesn’t eliminate the human at the pick station; it eliminates the trip to get there.

Why the repeat-buy number matters more than the headline number

Hai Robotics’ own framing of the 10,000-robot milestone is worth taking seriously: eight customers have already expanded their systems or selected HaiPick Climb again for a new site. Founder and CEO Richie Chen put it plainly: “Reaching 10,000 robots is an important milestone, but what gives us greater confidence is what happens after go-live.” A vendor that gets repeat orders from existing customers is showing something a press release about total units can’t — that the system holds up under real daily throughput, not just a pilot.

Why we track it

Warehouse picker is one of the largest low-wage occupations in the US and a genuine bellwether category for this catalog. Case-handling ACR systems like HaiClimber compete directly with the walking-and-fetching half of that job, in facilities that are easier to retrofit than a full AS/RS overhaul. Over 1-3 years, expect greenfield e-commerce and 3PL warehouses — new builds where racking can be designed around a climbing robot from day one — to adopt fastest. Over 3-5 years, the retrofit case broadens as more vendors compete on install speed rather than raw capacity. The travel time HaiClimber removes was never a skilled part of the job; it was the part that made the job physically exhausting and slow to train for. That’s usually the first slice of a job that goes.