A parcel is prepared for shipment at Amazon’s warehouse in Hemel Hempstead, England.
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Amazon warehouse workers could soon be joined by a couple new co-workers: Ernie and Bert.
Those are the names of the new robots Amazon is testing with the goal of reducing strenuous movements for workers.
While the introduction of robots to the workplace often raises questions about whether human jobs will be replaced, Amazon argues they simply allow workers to focus on tasks that most need their attention while minimizing their potential for injury. Amazon said it’s added over a million jobs around the world since it began using robotics in its facilities in 2012.
In May, Amazon announced a goal of reducing recordable incident rates by 50% by 2025. It plans to invest over $300 million into safety projects this year.
Amazon described in a blog post Sunday four robots it’s testing to move items across its fulfillment centers and closer to workers.
Ernie helps remove items from a robotic shelf so employees don’t have to. The process doesn’t save time, Amazon said in the post, but testing has so far indicated it could make work safer for employees.
Bert is one of Amazon’s first Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs), made to navigate facilities independently, even while workers are moving around. Unlike other robots, Bert would not need to remain in a restricted space, meaning workers could ask it to take items across a facility. Amazon said Bert could eventually move heavier items.
Scooter and Kermit are two other AMRs under development that transport carts. Amazon said these types of robots could take over workers’ tasks of moving empty packages across facilities so they can focus on activities requiring critical thinking skills and reduce physically strenuous work.
Kermit, which follows magnetic tape to move empty totes, is further along in development, Amazon said, and will be introduced in at least a dozen North American sites this year. Amazon said it plans to deploy Scooter in at least one facility this year.
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Ambarella stock roared 20% higher Friday as the chip designer reported better-than-expected second-quarter results and issued strong guidance.
Here’s how the company did compared to LSEG expectations:
Earnings: 15 cents per share adj. vs 5 cents per share expected
Revenue: $96 million vs $90 million expected
Ambarella, which is known for its system-on-chip semiconductors and software used for edge artificial intelligence, said it expects third-quarter revenue between $100 million and $108 million, beating the LSEG estimate of $91 million.
The company boosted its fiscal year revenue growth outlook to a range of 31-35%, to $379 million at the midpoint, which topped the $350 million expected by LSEG.
“After a multi-year period of significant edge AI R&D investment, our broad product portfolio enable us to address a rising breadth of edge AI applications,” CEO Fermi Wang said in a call with analysts Thursday.
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Wang singled out strength in “portable video, robotic aerial drones and edge infrastructure.”
Edge computing refers to the direct processing and storing of data at the device level instead of those actions being handled remotely in the cloud at a data center.
Ambarella had a net loss of $20 million, a loss of 47 cents per share in the second quarter. That narrowed from the same quarter a year ago, when the company had a net loss of $35 million, a loss of 85 cents per share.
The company said stock-based compensation and the amortization of acquisition-related costs weighed on earnings.
In June, Bloomberg reported that the company was considering a sale and had held talks with banks. Shares climbed 20% higher on the news.
Marvell Technology Group Ltd. headquarters in Santa Clara, California, US, on Friday, Sept. 6, 2024.
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Shares of Marvell Technology plunged 15% on Friday after the artificial intelligence chipmaker’s data center revenue fell short of estimates and it gave lackluster guidance for the current quarter.
Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:
Earnings per share: 67 cents adjusted vs. 66 cents expected
Revenue: $2.01 billion vs. $2.01 billion expected
Revenue jumped 58% from a year ago in the fiscal second quarter that ended Aug. 2, a record for the company that was fueled in part by “strong AI demand” for its custom silicon and electro-optics products, Marvell CEO Matt Murphy said in a statement.
The company had net income of $194.8 million, or 22 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $193.3 million, a loss of 22 cents per share, during the same period last year.
For the fiscal third quarter, the company called for revenue to be $2.06 billion, plus or minus 5%. That was slightly below the $2.11 billion forecast by analysts, according to LSEG.
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Marvell is known for creating customized chips and hardware, which it offers to cloud providers such as Amazon and Microsoft.
Sales in its data center segment reached $1.49 billion during the quarter, which fell short of Wall Street’s projected $1.51 billion, according to StreetAccount.
On a conference call with investors, Murphy said the company expects “overall data center revenue in Q3 to be flat sequentially,” which he attributed to nonlinear growth in its custom AI chips business. Fourth-quarter growth is expected to be “substantially stronger” than the third quarter, Murphy said.
He added that “lumpiness” of the guidance is normal as large hyperscalers build out infrastructure.
Still, some investors were hoping for greater clarity around the company’s pipeline of new customers.
“Without this, we find it very difficult underwriting the company’s 20% data center market share target,” Cantor analysts wrote in a Thursday note to clients. “Thus, we wait for more bottoms up granularity before potentially turning more positive.”
Analysts at Bank of America downgraded Marvell’s stock to neutral from buy on Friday and lowered their price target to $78 per share from $90, partly on concerns around the company’s AI growth prospects “in the near/medium term.”
Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, arrives to pay his last respect to Indian industrialist Ratan Tata at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) ahead of its cremation in Mumbai on October 10, 2024.
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Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries on Friday announced new partnerships with Google and Meta to accelerate the company’s push into artificial intelligence.
Speaking at an annual shareholders’ meeting on Friday, Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani also disclosed ambitions to list Reliance Jio, India’s largest mobile network, in the first half of 2026.
“A decade ago, digital services became a new growth engine for Reliance — the opportunity before us with AI is just as large, if not larger,” Ambani said, as he revealed a new fully owned subsidiary called Reliance Intelligence.
In a pre-recorded video played during the AGM, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that Reliance would leverage the internet giant’s AI and cloud computing capabilities to boost innovation across sectors like energy, retail, telecommunications and financial services.
The pair will establish a dedicated cloud region in India, powered by clean energy provided by Reliance Industries and connected through Jio’s network.
Separately, Ambani also announced a new joint venture with Meta to make use of the tech group’s open-source AI models and deliver “sovereign, enterprise-ready AI for India.”
Under the new venture, Reliance Industries and Meta have committed an initial investment of $100 million to capitalize the unit in a ratio of 70% and 30% respectively, the two companies said in a joint statement Friday.
Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg hailed the partnership as “a key step forward towards ensuring that everyone has access to AI and eventually super intelligence.”
The partnerships signal a deeper push from U.S. tech names into India at a time when the country is seeing significant economic growth. It is not the first time that either Google and Meta has shown an interest in Reliance.
In 2020, Meta invested $5.7 billion into Jio Platforms, which is the parent company of Reliance Jio. Google separately announced a $4.5 billion investment in Jio Platforms that same year.
Jio Platforms owns a number of brands, including its telecommunications business Reliance Jio, which has grown rapidly over the past decade thanks to competitive pricing.
Reliance’s deeper pacts with Google and Meta come at a precarious time for U.S.-India relations. U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed hefty tariffs on India over its purchases of Russian oil.