Nanyang Technological University: Bringing AI-Powered Dessert Retail to Campus Life with Chateraise

Customer Requirements

A university campus is not only a place for study and research. It is also a daily living environment where students, faculty, staff, and visitors move between lectures, libraries, dormitories, laboratories, and social spaces throughout the day.

At Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, campus retail needs to be fast, convenient, and flexible enough to match student life. Students may want a quick dessert after class, an ice cream during a study break, a pastry before a group meeting, or a small gift to share with friends.

For Chateraise, the goal was to bring its Japanese dessert experience closer to campus customers while making the shopping journey more efficient and modern.

Traditional dessert stores often face several challenges in campus environments:

1. Irregular traffic throughout the day
   Student demand changes between class breaks, lunch hours, evenings, weekends, and exam periods.
2. Cold-chain product requirements
   Cakes, ice cream, cream puffs, frozen desserts, and other Japanese sweets require reliable refrigerated display and careful store operation.
3. Limited campus space
   University retail spaces need to be compact, organized, and easy to access.
4. Checkout friction for small purchases
   Customers buying one dessert or a quick snack should not need to wait in long cashier queues.
5. A need for smarter campus retail
   NTU’s technology-driven environment creates strong potential for AI-powered service models that connect convenience, automation, and daily campus life.

To meet these needs, Chateraise introduced an AI-powered unmanned store at NTU, supported by Cloudpick’s smart retail technology.

Cloudpick Solution

Cloudpick provided the AI-powered unmanned retail technology behind Chateraise’s NTU store, combining computer vision, smart sensing, access control, automated checkout, and backend data management.

The customer journey is designed to be simple:

Enter the store
Customers access the store through the entry gate, creating a secure and trackable shopping environment.

Pick products freely
Inside the store, customers can browse open refrigerated shelves and choose from Chateraise’s product range, including cakes, ice cream, pastries, Japanese sweets, and packaged desserts.

Walk out naturally
After selecting products, customers leave without scanning each item one by one or waiting for a cashier.

Automatic recognition and settlement
Cloudpick’s AI system identifies the selected items, generates the order, and updates transaction and inventory data automatically.

This transforms dessert shopping into a true Grab & Go experience.

Compared with vending machines, the Chateraise AI-powered store offers a more premium and natural browsing experience. Customers can see the products clearly, compare different dessert options, and enjoy the feeling of shopping in a real store rather than selecting from a closed machine.

Compared with traditional staffed dessert retail, the unmanned model reduces checkout friction and helps make campus service more flexible. It allows Chateraise to bring a wider product selection into a compact campus space while maintaining a clean, organized, and brand-consistent store environment.

The store also functions as a smart campus retail showcase. With visible AI cameras, entry gates, refrigerated display areas, and clear product presentation, it shows how unmanned retail can support high-quality food and dessert categories, not only snacks and beverages.

Video

To see Chateraise’s AI-powered unmanned store at Nanyang Technological University in action, watch the video below:

YouTube:
https://youtube.com/shorts/MC1q34O62Lc?feature=share

Result

The Chateraise AI-powered unmanned store at Nanyang Technological University demonstrates how smart retail can upgrade campus dessert shopping.

For students, staff, and visitors, the value is immediate. They can quickly enter the store, choose a dessert, and continue their day without unnecessary waiting. Whether it is an ice cream between classes, a cake after a long study session, or a Japanese sweet to share with friends, the store makes dessert retail faster and more accessible.

For operators, the benefits are broader:

1. A smoother campus shopping experience
   The Grab & Go model reduces checkout friction and makes small purchases easier.
2. Better product variety than vending machines
   Open refrigerated shelves allow Chateraise to display cakes, ice cream, pastries, and packaged desserts in a more attractive way.
3. Efficient use of campus space
   The compact store format can fit into student centers, residence areas, academic buildings, and other high-traffic campus locations.
4. Lower checkout dependency
   Automated recognition and settlement reduce the need for traditional cashier operation.
5. Real-time digital operation
   Product movement, sales records, and inventory updates can be managed through the backend system, helping support replenishment and category planning.
6. A stronger smart campus image
   The project gives students and visitors a direct experience of AI-powered retail in everyday campus life.

Most importantly, the project shows that unmanned retail is not limited to standard convenience items. With the right technology and store design, AI-powered retail can also support premium food, desserts, and cold-chain categories.

By working with Cloudpick, Chateraise brings a new model of smart dessert retail to Nanyang Technological University: compact, intelligent, convenient, and closely connected to the rhythm of campus life.

Customer Testimonial

A representative from the project said:

“Campus customers want convenience, but they also care about product quality and shopping experience. With Cloudpick’s AI-powered unmanned store technology, Chateraise is able to bring its Japanese dessert products closer to students and staff while creating a faster, more flexible retail model. This project shows how smart retail can support both everyday convenience and premium dessert categories in a university environment.”