Robot Chefs Take Over Beijing for Winter Olympics

With the Winter Olympics opening in Beijing this week, organisers are going to extreme lengths to keep the event from being derailed by Covid-19, including employing robot chefs to prepare meals onsite.

Food and its preparation is an integral part to any event of this magnitude, but especially for the Olympics, whose participants rely on it to fuel their performances. Organisers are employing a range of automated devices to ensure efficient food delivery, while reducing the risk of transmission of the virus, which has brought the world to a virtual halt for two years.

Among the futuristic service bots is a ceiling-mounted robot arm that delivers bowls of noodles to individuals sitting in Plexiglas cubicles at dining tables. There is an artificial intelligence-enabled chef-bot that prepares hamburgers, a coffee-bot that does everything from grinding beans to brewing coffee, and even an ultra-efficient bartender-bot.

The automation can factor in the thousands of variations necessary in order to serve the needs of athletes from all over the world, with Chinese, Western and fast food options on the menu.

There has been much made of the automation of kitchen tasks and how robotics might fit into the restaurant kitchen of the future. The necessity of keeping the Beijing Winter Olympics as Covid-free as possible perhaps has given us a glimpse into the future.