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How many robots does it take to run a grocery store?

Tom Scott · 8M views · 2021-07-05 · 5:08

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Overview

Tom Scott tours Ocado's automated grocery warehouse, where thousands of robots move boxes on a grid called the Hive, and asks whether they are individual robots or a hive mind.

On Hacker News

Cited in automation and robotics threads as the example of a warehouse built robot-first.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2021–2026

Topics

Manufacturing & industrial processesRoboticsBusiness & economics (other)
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ocadogrocery robotstom scottwarehouse automationlogistics

What people said

cecilpl2 · 2022-01 · Recommendation

I thought this was an interesting insight into what a fully-automated grocery store looks like. And also wild to think about how different things are when you design them for automation from the ground up. [VIDEO]

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cbm-vic-20 · 2021-07 · Recommendation

Tom Scott had a good video a couple of weeks ago about a grocery packing warehouse that has a sophisticated picking network: [VIDEO]

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pj_mukh · 2026-07 · Reference

Great, now let's (gradually) get rid of all surface parking lots and build hyper-optimized multi-floor parking setups not made for human driving. A sort of Ocado Grocery Warehouse [1] for cars. [1]: [VIDEO] As always, yes I know this already exists in Japan.

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Sources

Video by Tom Scott, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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