After a recent infusion of government money into technology that sucks carbon out of the air, big business is getting in as well.
Amazon announced Tuesday that it will help fund the world’s largest deployment of direct air capture (DAC) technology by purchasing a quarter of a million metric tons of carbon removal over the next decade from STRATOS, the first DAC plant from 1PointFive, a carbon removal technology company. Amazon did not disclose the dollar value of the investment.
The carbon that is removed through the air capture systems will then be stored underground in saline aquifers, which are large rock formations saturated in salt water.
A quarter of a million metric tons of carbon dioxide is equivalent to the emissions in one year from 55,633 gasoline-powered cars, according to the EPA.
Amazon, through its Climate Pledge Fund, is also investing in CarbonCapture Inc., a climate tech firm that is helping to accelerate commercial deployment of new DAC materials to absorb carbon.
“With these two new investments in direct air capture, we aim to target emissions we can’t otherwise eliminate at their source,” Kara Hurst, Amazon’s VP of worldwide sustainability, said in a release. “We’re also helping launch technologies we know the world will need to avoid the worst effects of global climate change — supporting those technologies’ growth so they’ll also be available to other companies and organizations.”
Amazon is attempting to decarbonize its global operations through wind and solar renewable energy projects, delivery fleet electrification and reduction in the weight packing per shipment.
Amazon’s announcement comes on the heels of Microsoft‘s news that it has agreed to buy carbon credits from California-based startup Heirloom Carbon, which uses limestone to remove carbon from the atmosphere. The credits will remove up to 315,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide over the next decade. That would amount to at least $200 million based on market prices. The carbon offsets are equivalent of the annual emissions of roughly 70,000 gas-powered cars.
Heirloom’s DAC Hub was recently selected by the U.S. Department of Energy for up to $600 million in matching funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
“As an investor in and customer of Heirloom, we believe that Heirloom’s technical approach and plan are designed for rapid iteration to help drive down the cost of large-scale Direct Air Capture at the urgent pace needed to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement,” Brian Marrs, Microsoft’s senior director of energy and carbon, said in a release.
While these are some of the largest financial commitments to DAC, scientists say that worldwide, it’s necessary to remove about 1 trillion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in this century in order to keep global warming below the 1.5 degrees Celsius-limit set by the Paris Agreement, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
“Solving big problems requires innovation and invention of new technologies that don’t exist yet, and it’s important that we use all the tools available to us to make the greatest impact,” Hurst said.
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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.
Punit Paranjpepunit Paranjpe | AFP | Getty Images
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.