Hai Robotics has been selected to equip a new large-scale e-commerce fulfillment center for a leading European fashion retailer with what the company describes as the world’s largest single-site deployment of rack-climbing warehouse robots. The project is built around the HaiPick Climb goods-to-person architecture and more than 1,500 Climb robots working as one integrated fleet. The automated footprint is approximately 30,000 square meters and is specified for 1.2 million double-deep storage locations, with designed tote throughput above 24,000 units per hour.
The retailer already operates multiple HaiPick sites in Europe and is expanding the partnership rather than running a first-of-kind pilot. Climb robots travel vertically on the rack face, which increases usable cube compared with floor-only AMRs and conventional aisle forklifts, while double-deep storage further raises density for fashion SKUs that combine high variety with seasonal peaks. The system is positioned as a scalable omnichannel engine: inbound totes can be put away automatically, inventory remains dense yet reachable, and outbound waves are staged at goods-to-person stations so associates pick without long walks.
Hai Robotics frames the award as evidence that high-rise ACR-style robots have moved from showcase deployments into multi-thousand-unit production systems. For operators evaluating AS/RS versus AMR, the project illustrates a hybrid: robotic storage density close to shuttle or mini-load AS/RS, with the ability to add robots incrementally as volume grows. Integration with WMS/WES will be critical because 1,500 machines sharing 1.2 million locations require tight tasking, battery and traffic management, and exception handling when totes jam or SKUs are mis-slotted.
The announcement, dated 8 September 2026 and still circulating on 9–10 September in European trade and financial summaries, is one of the largest disclosed robotic fulfillment awards of the year and a benchmark for fashion and general merchandise e-commerce automation in EMEA.