Nepal is a picturesque country known for Mount Everest, amazing hiking, and friendly people. It also might be the next hotbed for robotics thanks to Nepali company Paaila Technology and Kathmandu’s Naulo Restaurant. Naulo’s slogan is “where food meets technology” and they’ve recently incorporated five robot waiters to their bustling restaurant.

Nepal’s Robot Waiters

According to Xinhua, the robots are driven by speech recognition, natural language processing, swarm intelligence, and have the ability to return to docking stations on their own. The five robots, three named Ginger and two called Ferry, can even tell jokes and answer basic questions in both Nepali and English.

The customers order via a digital menu built into touchscreens on the table. The order goes straight into the kitchen and once the food is ready, the robot collects it from the counter and brings it to your table

Customers (especially kids) have flocked to see the robot waiters in action. More than just a novelty, they have helped the restaurant cut down on manpower and speed up service.

“Naulo is the first digitalized robotic restaurant not just in Nepal, but also in South Asia. We believe that our robot is one of the most advanced service robots in the world which is user-friendly and very easy to operate,” Binay Raut, CEO of Paaila Technology and Naulo Restaurant

Made in Nepal: Paaila Technology

Paaila Technology’s first humanoid robot named Pari has been working at the Nepal SBI Bank helping to guide customers and provide information. With the success of robots like Ginger and Pari, Paaila Technology has been receiving interest from the hospitality and banking sectors. The company feels that they have an advantage being based in Nepal as their production costs are lower compared to other countries. Not content with just having their robots help businesses in Nepal, they are looking to break into markets around the globe. The first stop seems to be China as Paaila has recently registered a company there.

Check out our article on robot’s helping in hospitals and ones that make pizza.