Sensei, a Portuguese provider of autonomous stores, has partnered with edge-to-cloud company Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to enhance its autonomous retail offering.

Sensei technology is digitalising store operations, making them more efficient. Retailers can improve the shopper’s in-store experience by providing a seamless, scan-free, checkout-less, and queue free shopping experience.

Using HPE ProLiant servers, Sensei is able to offer retailers computing technology for real-time consumer insights as well as daily store management and invoicing, delivered affordably and at speed.

Consumer retail expectations have changed over the past two years and customers now value ease and convenience when it comes to shopping. But as the pandemic has shown, people are now demanding services that make buying simpler, whether that’s click and collect, contactless payments, or subscription services. Autonomous retail is the next frontier, as it allows users to go into a store and pick up anything they want and leave. It removes the need to worry about long queues and, thanks to the real-time stock insights that retailers receive, shoppers are reassured that the shelves will always be full.

As retailers are keen to drive in-store traffic, innovations such as autonomous stores are primed to become more widely adopted.

“When we sought to find an OEM partner for our computing requirements, it was imperative that we found one that would deliver the best capabilities for our customers,” said Vasco Portugal, CEO at Sensei. “And we found that in Hewlett Packard Enterprise. And we knew they would be able to deliver on our needs for a mission-critical platform that could offer real-time processing of consumer data. We are proud to be working with HPE, to not only provide their servers to retailers in Europe, but also worldwide.”

Collaborating with HPE ensures that Sensei’s research and development computing lab, used to run its AI and ML models, are equipped with technology from HPE ProLiant DL380 servers, containing GPUs to process image data and analysis of supermarket goods. This in turn, helps Sensei o remain at the forefront of the retail sector, driving innovation in AI and autonomous retail technology.

“We’re delighted to work with Sensei on this exciting solution designed to help retailers unlock the value of the data that they are collecting in the store,” said Carlos Leite from HPE. “Our collaboration brings HPE open, intelligent technology underpinned by world-class security unique to ProLiant servers to ensure every instance delivers the right performance and consistency to meet each retailer’s needs.”