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Amazon has restarted drone deliveries in two states after a months-long pause, the company confirmed.

In January, Amazon halted Prime Air deliveries in College Station, Texas, and Tolleson, Arizona, the two U.S. markets where it’s testing the service, as the company rolled out a software update to its drone fleet.

Amazon discovered an abnormality with the drone’s altitude sensor, caused by dust in the air, that could have caused its system to produce an inaccurate reading of its position relative to the ground, the company said. Amazon “never experienced an actual safety issue,” but said it opted to suspend deliveries while it corrected the issue.

The company brought drone deliveries back online last week after it completed the software update and received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration, Amazon spokesperson Av Zammit said in a statement.

“Safety underscores everything we do at Prime Air, which is why we paused our operations to conduct a software update on the MK30 drone,” Zammit said. “The updates are now complete and were approved by the FAA, allowing us to resume deliveries.”

An FAA spokesperson didn’t immediately provide a comment.

Zammit said Prime Air has seen “unprecedented levels of demand” since it resumed service. David Carbon, an executive who oversees Amazon’s drone program, wrote in a LinkedIn post last week that the company dropped a bottle of ZzzQuil sleep medicine at an Arizona customer’s home in “31 minutes and 30 seconds.” Carbon didn’t say how far the drone had to fly and Zammit declined to provide details.

For over a decade, Amazon has been working to bring to life founder Jeff Bezos’ vision of drones whizzing toothpaste, books and batteries to customers’ doorsteps in 30 minutes or less. But progress has been slow, as Prime Air has only been made available in the U.S. in College Station and Tolleson. A test site in Lockeford, California, was shuttered last April. The program was also hit with layoffs in 2023 as Amazon CEO Andy Jassy cut costs across the company.

Amazon has set a goal to deliver 500 million packages by drone per year by the end of the decade. The company last year notched a critical regulatory milestone that could enable it to accelerate deliveries. It’s eyed international expansion to the U.K., and recently welcomed Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in a visit to a Prime Air facility.

The company also introduced a new version of its delivery drone, called the MK30, which is designed to be quieter than previous models and can fly in light rain.

Customers in College Station, a quiet suburban town that’s about 100 miles northwest of Houston, had previously complained about the drones’ noise levels. After rolling out the MK30, the company is also taking steps to relocate its drone hub farther away from residents’ homes later this year.

Before Amazon suspended drone deliveries, the MK30 crashed in two separate incidents during test flights at the company’s facility in Pendleton, Oregon. Last December, a software issue caused two drones to crash, according to Bloomberg. And in September, a pilot mistakenly caused a “mid-air collision” between two drones after he tested how the MK30 would perform when faced with a failed propeller, according to a federal crash report.

Another crash occurred on Feb. 21 during tests at the Pendleton site, which resulted in a drone sustaining substantial damage, according to a report compiled by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Amazon said the crashes were unrelated to its decision to halt drone operations. The company has said these kinds of incidents, which have also occurred with other models in previous years, are part of the testing process, as it pushes drone systems “up to the limits and beyond.”

WATCH: Amazon, Alphabet’s Wing and Zipline race to roll out drone delivery

Amazon drones make 100th delivery, lagging far behind Alphabet's Wing and Walmart partner Zipline

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Britain at risk of losing ground to rival fintech and crypto hubs, execs warn

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Britain at risk of losing ground to rival fintech and crypto hubs, execs warn

Workers cross a junction near the Bank of England (BOE) in the City of London, UK, on Tuesday, April 8, 2025. 

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

LONDON — Britain is at risk of losing budding fintech and cryptocurrency entrepreneurs to rival hubs if it doesn’t address pressing regulation and funding challenges, according to industry leaders.

Several crypto bosses told CNBC this week that the U.K. has created an unfavorable environment for fintech and crypto. They argued that the local regulator takes too strict an approach to registering new firms, and that pension funds managing trillions of pounds are too risk-averse

Whereas a decade ago the U.K. was seen as being at “the forefront in terms of promoting competitiveness and innovation,” today things “have shifted more towards prioritizing safety and soundness to an extent where growth has been held behind,” according to Jaidev Janardana, CEO of British digital bank Zopa.

“If I look at the speed of innovation, I do feel that the U.S. is ahead — although they have their own challenges. But look at Singapore, Hong Kong — again, you see much more rapid innovation,” Janardana told CNBC. “I think we are still ahead of the EU, but we can’t remain complacent with that.”

Zopa CEO: Fintechs face challenges when it comes to scaling in the UK

Tim Levene, CEO of venture capital firm Augmentum Fintech, said entrepreneurs face challenges attracting funding in the U.K. and could be tempted to start their founding journeys in other regions, like Asia and the Middle East.

“We’re scrambling around looking for pots of capital in the U.K., where currently it would be more fruitful to go to the Gulf, to go to the U.S., to go to Australia, or elsewhere in Asia, and that that doesn’t feel right,” Levene told CNBC.

Lisa Jacobs, CEO of business lending platform Funding Circle, said that the negative impacts of Brexit are still being felt by the U.K. fintech industry — particularly when it comes to attracting overseas talent.

“I think it is right that we’re paranoid about other locations,” she told CNBC. “It is right that we are trying to — as an industry, as government — make the U.K. still that great place to set up. We have all the ingredients there, because we’ve got the ecosystem, we do have this talent setting up new businesses. But it needs to continue. We can’t rest on our laurels.”

Crypto rules unclear

The U.K. is home to a vibrant financial technology sector, with firms like Monzo and Revolut among those scaling to become challengers to traditional banks.

Industry insiders attribute their rapid rise in part to innovation-friendly rules that allowed tech startups to apply for — and secure — licenses to offer banking and electronic money services with greater ease.

Businesses operating in the world of crypto are frustrated that the same hasn’t happened yet for their industry.

“Other jurisdictions have started to seize the opportunity,” Cassie Craddock, U.K. and Europe managing director at blockchain firm Ripple, told CNBC.

The U.S., for example, has adopted a more pro-crypto stance under President Donald Trump, with the Securities and Exchange Commission dropping several high-profile legal cases against major crypto businesses.

The EU, meanwhile, has led the way when it comes to laying out clear rules for the industry with its Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation.

“The U.S. is driving global tailwinds for the industry,” Craddock said, adding: “MiCA came into force in the EU at the end of last year, while Singapore, Hong Kong and the UAE are moving full steam ahead with pro-industry reforms,” she added.

The U.K. on Tuesday laid out draft proposals for regulating crypto firms — however, industry insiders say the devil will be in the detail when it comes to addressing more complex technical issues, such as reserve requirements for stablecoins.

Rules on stablecoins unclear

Coinbase UK boss: Crypto industry needs 'smart' regulation

Another issue faced by crypto companies is that of being “debanked” by high street banks, according to Keith Grose, head of U.K. at Coinbase.

“Debanking is a huge issue — you can’t get bank accounts if you’re a company or individual who works in crypto,” Keith Grose, Coinbase’s U.K. head, told CNBC. “You can’t build the future of the financial system here if we don’t have that level playing field.”

A survey by Startup Coalition, Global Digital Finance and the U.K. Cryptoasset Business Council of more than 80 crypto firms published in January found that half were denied bank accounts or had existing ones closed by major banks.

“I think the U.K. will get it right — but there is a risk if you get it wrong that you drive innovation to other markets,” Coinbase’s Grose told CNBC.

“This is such a fast developing space — stablecoins grew 300% last year. They’re already doing more volume than Visa and Mastercard,” he added. “I think if you deliver smart regulation here, stablecoins can be a foundational part of our payment ecosystem in the U.K. going forward.”

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Satya Nadella says as much as 30% of Microsoft code is written by AI

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Satya Nadella says as much as 30% of Microsoft code is written by AI

Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg (L) speaks with Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella after posing for a family picture with guests who attend the “Tech for Good” Summit at the Elysee Palace in Paris, on May 23, 2018.

Charles Platiau | AFP | Getty Images

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Tuesday said that as much as 30% of the company’s code is now written by artificial intelligence.

“I’d say maybe 20%, 30% of the code that is inside of our repos today and some of our projects are probably all written by software,” Nadella said during a conversation before a live audience with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

The pair of CEOs were speaking at Meta’s inaugural LlamaCon AI developer event in Menlo Park, California. Nadella added that the amount of code being written by AI at Microsoft is going up steadily. 

Nadella asked Zuckerberg how much of Meta’s code was coming from AI. Zuckerberg said he didn’t know the exact figure off the top of his head, but he said Meta is building an AI model that can in turn build future versions of the company’s Llama family of AI models.

“Our bet is sort of that in the next year probably … maybe half the development is going to be done by AI, as opposed to people, and then that will just kind of increase from there,” Zuckerberg said.

Microsoft and Meta together employ tens of thousands of software developers, but they’re the latest companies to discuss how AI is replacing some of the work written by human software developers. 

Since OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, people have turned to AI for a number of tasks, including customer service work, generating sales pitches and software development itself. 

Google CEO Sundar Pichai in October said that more than 25% of new code was written by AI. Earlier this month, Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke told employees that they will have to prove AI cannot do a job before asking for more headcount. Similarly, Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn on Monday announced in a memo that the language-teaching company will gradually turn to AI in lieu of human contractors. 

Earlier this month CNBC and other outlets reported that OpenAI was in talks to acquire Windsurf, a startup with “vibe coding” software that spits out whole programs with a few words of input. The dream is that with machines helping to write code, organizations will be able to produce more and better software.

WATCH: Amazon forms new unit focused on Agentic AI

Amazon forms new unit focused on Agentic AI

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Samsung flags uncertain economic climate after smartphone, chip sales power quarterly results beat

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Samsung flags uncertain economic climate after smartphone, chip sales power quarterly results beat

Photo illustration showing the Samsung Group company logo displayed on a smartphone screen.

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Samsung Electronics‘ operating profit and revenue beat analysts’ estimates Wednesday, as sales of its flagship Galaxy S25 smartphones as well as memory chips rose.

The South Korean company posted a record quarterly revenue, up 10% from a year earlier, while its first-quarter operating profit climbed 1.5%.

Here are Samsung’s first-quarter results compared with LSEG SmartEstimates, which are weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate:

  • Revenue: 79.1 trillion Korean won ($55.4 billion) vs. 78.1 trillion Korean won
  • Operating profit: 6.7 trillion Korean won vs. 6.4 trillion Korean won

First-quarter revenue marginally topped Samsung’s forecast of 79 trillion Korean won, while operating profit also came in higher than the company’s expectations of 6.6 trillion Korean won.

Samsung is a leading manufacturer of memory chips, which are utilized in devices such as laptops and servers, and is also the world’s second-largest smartphone maker.

The company flagged macroeconomic uncertainties due to trade tensions and a slowdown in global growth. Samsung expects performance to improve in the second half of the year, “assuming that the uncertainties are diminished.”

South Korea-listed shares of Samsung Electronics were trading down about 0.4%.

Memory business

A report from Counterpoint Research earlier this month said that SK Hynix had overtaken Samsung in overall DRAM market revenue for the first time, with a 36% global market share as compared to Samsung’s 34%.

The report added that this had resulted, in part, from SK Hynix’s dominance in high bandwidth memory or HBM — a type of DRAM used in artificial intelligence servers in which chips are vertically stacked to save space and reduce power consumption.

SK Hynix last week topped quarterly revenue and operating profit estimates on strong demand for its high bandwidth memory offerings.

In its first quarter earnings, Samsung said it experienced deferred HBM demand from customers anticipating the rollout of its latest HBM products.

For the current quarter, Samsung anticipates continued strong demand for AI servers and will seek to strengthen its position in high-value-added products, including HBM. 

Smartphones 

Samsung’s mobile experience and networks businesses, tasked with developing and selling smartphones, tablets, wearables and other devices, reported a increase in sales and profit from the prior year and quarter.

The company credited the growth to the launch of its latest Galaxy S25 smartphone series, which includes AI features.

In the current quarter, the company plans to sustain sales through the launch of a new Galaxy S25 Edge smartphone and said it will continue to expand the AI-powered features offered on its smartphone lineup.

Correction: This story has been revised to reflect that operating profit in the chip segment declined both on a quarter-on-quarter as well as year-on-year basis.

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