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As industrial applications of embodied intelligence accelerate, Swire Coca-Cola has deployed AI robots at one of its largest bottling plants in the Chinese Mainland.
The technological breakthrough addresses a long-standing industry challenge: picking heavy, shrink-wrapped packs quickly and accurately for mixed-product orders. In solving it, Swire Coca-Cola has created a safer, smarter and scalable model for its global bottling network.
Now processing live customer orders at Swire Coca-Cola’s Zhengzhou plant in Henan province, SAI is an intelligent picking and sorting system guided by a single AI brain capable of making decisions on its own to optimise operations. It sequences customer orders, orchestrates a wider fleet of robots to identify products, pick and sort heavy shrink-wrapped beverages, move them across the warehouse floor and build mixed-product pallets without manual intervention.
This technological capability upgrade puts people first. Picking is one of the most physically demanding roles in supply chain operations and is highly dependent on night shifts, making skilled pickers increasingly difficult to recruit and retain as the population ages. By applying artificial intelligence and robotics to this demanding work, Swire Coca-Cola is reducing physical strain and ergonomic risk for frontline colleagues. It is also equipping employees with new skills in robotics maintenance.
Following its successful commercial deployment, the capability is planned for Swire Coca-Cola’s Nanjing, Hefei and Guangzhou plants next year. A phased rollout is set to follow, turning a locally developed breakthrough into a scalable operational advantage across our global bottling network.
Turning Embodied AI into Industrial Reality
Developed to improve safety and solve a longstanding operational challenge, the initiative also supports Hong Kong’s broader ambition to accelerate digital transformation and advance future industries such as embodied intelligence, as set out in the HKSAR’s first Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development.
Karen So, Chief Executive Officer of Swire Coca-Cola, said: “Innovation has long been part of how Swire Coca-Cola solves complex operational challenges. With SAI, we have overcome a world-class beverage warehousing challenge and translated that breakthrough into safer work for our people by reducing physical strain and ergonomic risk on the warehouse floor, while strengthening the speed, consistency and resilience of our operations.”
“It also shows what a Hong Kong-headquartered company can contribute to embodied intelligence,” she added. “Hong Kong is where our ambition is set and our global system is run. A purpose-built solution developed in the Chinese Mainland, and now ready to scale across the global markets we serve, demonstrates the super value-added, super-connector role Hong Kong is positioned to play.”
Beyond improving safety, SAI helps Swire Coca-Cola’s operations in the Chinese Mainland respond to changing consumption habits. Consumers increasingly expect drinks to be available wherever they are, while emerging channels such as snack stores and flash warehouses have grown alongside traditional retail and the company’s product portfolio has broadened.
Our customers’ orders have consequently become smaller, more frequent and fragmented. Manual picking could no longer match that pattern in either capacity or consistency, particularly during peak season. By combining cost-efficient automation with scalable deployment, SAI strengthens operational excellence and supports Swire Coca-Cola’s long-term growth as customer demand and consumption patterns continue to evolve.
Purpose-Built Solutions Setting Industry Benchmarks
The project continues Swire Coca-Cola’s practice of solving operating problems with specialist partners. In 2017, it worked with Tsinghua University’s Building Energy Research Centre on a high-efficiency intelligent refrigeration system. In 2021, it developed a manufacturing information system with Siemens that now covers close to 100 production lines in the Chinese Mainland.
Alibaba Cloud and Tencent support digitalisation across the value chain, while the company’s SDRTM route-to-market tool uses geospatial, consumer and outlet data to rank high-potential prospects and contributes over 40% of new customers acquired in the Chinese Mainland in the first half of 2026.
SAI is the latest in a series of Swire Coca-Cola initiatives that apply technology and specialist expertise to solve complex operational problems and establish new benchmarks for the beverage industry.
Picking Beverages Like a Seasoned Master
Swire Coca-Cola co-developed SAI with Seth Robotics, its Hangzhou-based strategic technology partner. The system had to pick shrink-wrapped beverage packs reliably at the speed commercial operations demand.
SAI performs work closer to that of a seasoned pharmacist assembling a complex prescription at speed: identifying many items correctly, combining them in the required quantities and building a complete order without error. A beverage warehouse adds a further physical challenge. Most of Swire Coca-Cola’s beverage packs travel in shrink-wrapped film rather than rigid cartons, and the transparent plastic reflects light, deforms easily and offers little surface texture for a machine to recognise or grip.
The difficulty multiplies in commercial conditions. Heavy packs must be moved repeatedly at high speed, and several packaging formats must be combined within a single order and on one pallet. For years, no machine available for purchase could handle that combination reliably at the pace a working warehouse requires.
Each robot is built on a 40kg-class heavy-load platform and can lift up to four shrink-wrapped packs in a single movement. At peak, it handles 600 cases an hour, is designed to run around the clock and picks with accuracy approaching 100%.
The complete solution is also cost-efficient compared with purpose-built robotics solutions in adjacent industries. That affordability is what makes SAI replicable across a large bottling network rather than a single showcase installation.
Swire Coca-Cola is advancing the continued expansion and upgrade of its production footprint through a broader programme of technology investment, with SAI strengthening safer and smarter warehouse operations as one part of that effort. The company operates 23 plants and is delivering the RMB12 billion, ten-year investment plan announced in 2023. Its new Zhengzhou plant in Henan province opened in 2025 and now uses SAI to process live customer orders. Further capacity came on stream in late May 2026 with the commencement of operations at a plant in Kunshan, Jiangsu province, and an intelligent green production base in Guangzhou, Guangdong province. A new facility in Hainan is scheduled to open in December 2027.
Photo Captions
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A SAI robot lifts shrink-wrapped beverage packs at Swire Coca-Cola’s Zhengzhou plant. Built on a 40kg-class heavy-load platform, each robot can lift up to four packs in a single movement, handle up to 600 cases an hour at peak, operate around the clock and pick with accuracy approaching 100%.
AI-powered picking robots operate among pallets of shrink-wrapped beverages at Swire Coca-Cola’s Zhengzhou plant, supporting the automated preparation of mixed-product orders.
Representatives of Swire Coca-Cola and Seth Robotics launch the SAI intelligent picking and sorting system at Swire Coca-Cola’s Zhengzhou plant in Henan province.
Karen So, CEO of Swire Coca-Cola.
About Swire Coca-Cola Limited
Swire Coca-Cola is a division of Swire Pacific Limited, which is listed on the Main Board of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (stock code: 00019/00087). As the fifth largest Coca-Cola bottler in the world, Swire Coca-Cola holds the exclusive right to manufacture, market and distribute products of The Coca-Cola Company across 11 provinces and the Shanghai Municipality in the Chinese Mainland, as well as in the Hong Kong SAR, Taiwan Region, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and an extensive area of the western United States. The relationship with Coca-Cola began in 1965 with Swire’s acquisition of the majority shareholding in the Hong Kong bottling company. Today, Swire Coca-Cola manages and operates 41 production facilities and manufactures over 60 beverage brands. Its franchise territory covers a population of more than 940 million, with annual sales exceeding 2.3 billion unit cases.
Visit Swire Coca-Cola's website at www.swirecocacola.com