The Chinese robot army transforming the UK's retail industry

Every time you click "buy" on an online order, the chances are that your purchase starts getting processed within minutes. Increasingly, the journey starts with a squat silver floor robot gliding beneath a storage rack, lifting a shelf and carrying it across a warehouse to a waiting worker. At Geek+'s factory in the eastern Chinese city of Hefei, which the BBC visited, fleets of the robots are built and tested before being shipped to warehouses around the world. Some of Britain's biggest retailers - including Tesco, Asda and Next - now use the company's technology. By automating these repetitive journeys, Geek+ says retailers can increase picking speeds, store more goods in spaces that are hard to reach for humans, and reduce errors. Unlike traditional warehouse automation, which relies on fixed conveyor systems and permanent infrastructure, autonomous mobile robots can be deployed simply using QR code floor markers and safety fencing. Geek+, which listed in Hong Kong last year in one of the biggest robotics share sales of 2025, has become the world's largest supplier of autonomous mobile robots. The UK has struggled with weak productivity growth for more than a decade, and economi