Now have a robot serve you pizza in Multan!

Bringing Pakistan at par with the world in terms of technology and food, a restaurant in Multan now provides service to customers through a robot.

The robot, built and programmed by Syed Osama Aziz – a student of National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) - took Rs. 400,000 and eight months to complete, during which it was trained to serve. It runs on a rechargeable battery for 12-13 hours in one go and has a lifespan of about 5-10 years.

Employed at a pizza eatery near SP Chowk in Multan, the robot takes care of cleanliness and hygiene, welcomes customers, notes their orders, and stops to say “excuse me” when it spots a hurdle.

Aziz, a graduate of NUST, is an electrical engineer by profession. He claims that this is the first time a robot has been made for this purpose in Pakistan.

(Image source: REUTERS/Sheng Li)

(Image source: Getty)

(Image source: REUTERS/Stringer)

Such robots have earlier been introduced in the US and China, the latter of which started replacing human staff “as early as 2006. […] They’re still cheaper than human wait staff — the approximate $1,200 up-front cost per robot is just a couple months' salary for an average server in China,” Business Insider reported.

In addition, Iran’s news website Financial Tribune reported late February that Amirkabir University of Technology’s Esmaeil Mehrabi and his team are set to launch “the first robotic complex in Iran housing a number of domestically-built intelligent waiter robots capable of interacting with humans.”