(JW Insights) Jul 5 -- ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, reportedly plans to grow its robotics team to about 100 members from 50 by the end of this year, Yicai Global reported on July 4.

The firm aims to produce robots that can sort and pack goods in warehouses, LatePost reported on July 3, without disclosing the specific positions Beijing-based ByteDance is hiring for.

ByteDance began to explore robotics in 2020, and had a team of just over 10 people by the end of 2021. It has not set a goal for the number of robots it aims to develop this year.

About a month ago, ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming met with several executives, including chief executive officer Liang Rubo and vice president and head of algorithm technology Yang Zhenyuan, to discuss the direction and plans for the industrialization of the firm’s robots, the report said. 

The robotics team has since clarified its business direction, mainly producing robots to serve ByteDance’s e-commerce business and exploring the use of large language model capabilities in robots, the report noted.

ByteDance has set up a number of self-operated warehouses to mainly serve the e-commerce business of its short video platform Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, so it may want to make robots that can sort and move goods in warehouses and ‘seeing’ robotic arms that can pack items, according to the Yicai Global report.

(Yuan XY/Gao J)