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DENVER (KDVR) – In order to stay ahead of the demand for holiday mail, the US Postal Service has opened up a new package support annex, and with that comes a new state of the art mail sorting robot. 

Last year’s holiday season was like no other for the United States Postal Service.

“The Postal Service did 1.1 billion packages from Thanksgiving until New Year’s Day, just completely swamped us,” USPS spokesman James Boxrud said.

A pandemic-inspired surge in online shopping and e-commerce sparked a new comfort level for folks to shop at home. That is why the post office installed the single induction package sorter, or SIPS.

“It sorts about 3,000 packages per hour. About 60,000 in a night, during our holiday season,” Boxrud said.

The price tag, they won’t tell us, but it is part of a $40 billion investment to keep those packages moving.

“We are going to invest in the education of our employees, going to hire more people, invest in new machinery, in new buildings,” Boxrud said.

The Grinch may try to steal Christmas, but the post office says SIPS will save it.