Amazon bought the naming rights to rename Key Arena to Climate Change Arena.
Source: NHL Seattle
If Amazon is going to achieve its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, it’s going to need to rely on new technology. To spur the process along, the company has a $2 billion venture capital fund to gather and grow climate tech start-ups.
Watching where Amazon is investing is one way to track innovation in the space. It can also give investors a sense of what parts of its own business Amazon intends to prioritize in the future.
“A lot of what we invest for is three to five years out,” Matt Peterson, the head of The Climate Pledge Fund at Amazon, told CNBC. “We try to look around corners to see where our needs are going to be and where the needs of other companies are going to be. I mean, with with a 2040 time horizon, you know, you can’t really afford to look one or two years out, you have to think long term.”
The Climate Pledge Fund, which was announced in June 2020, is funded entirely with money from Amazon’s own balance sheet. For Amazon, the priority is more about incubating the technologies it will need to meet its own climate objectives — making money is good, too.
“If happens to be that the companies we invest in do well and they become the next Tesla or they return a multiple of our investment, then that’s great. It shows that it’s a validation of what it is, but it’s not the main focus of the fund relative to the broader strategic goal,” Peterson told CNBC.
It’s also open to investing in companies at many different stages, and has invested from seed-stage up to series B rounds. “We can invest a million dollars in the company or invest over $100 million in the company,” Peterson said.
Amazon is not alone in investing in climate tech. The space has seen a five-fold increase in investment dollars to $32.3 billion in 2021, up from $6.6 billion in 2016, according to a recent report.
Amazon is still accepting applications for start-ups looking for funding. The company plans to make investments both large and small.
Here are five areas within climate tech that Peterson told CNBC Amazon is looking to invest in and how those areas track with Amazon’s current or future goals.
Food and agriculture investments
Food production requires a ton of land and fuel, food waste and spoilage result in methane emissions, and dairy and meat production releases in CO2 and methane emissions — all of which are problems for Amazon if it plans to get further into food production.
“People forget that Amazon owns Whole Foods,” Peterson told CNBC. “We have a number of opportunities and new business models around Amazon Fresh, which is our physical stores, as well as our home delivery of foods.”
He added, “If you look at where we are going in the coming years with growth in grocery and growth in meals and food in general, it’s something we want to get ahead of.”
Electrification
In September 2019, Amazon announced it was going to purchase 100,000 electric delivery vehicles from Rivian Automotive. Those vans are to be deployed by 2024 and are part of Amazon’s effort to convert its delivery fleet to 100% renewable energy by 2030.
As part of that electrification push, Amazon invested in Resilient Power, which is developing technology that builds electric vehicle charging infrastructure at one-tenth the size and installation time of existing charging technology.
Resilient Power charging stations.
Photo courtesy Amazon.
“It’s not as sexy as, say, an EV manufacturer, but it’s just as important in my opinion,” Peterson told CNBC. “The technology that they’re really trying to update hasn’t been changed in probably 30 to 50 years. It’s ’70s-’80s style technology, with these large power stations or substations,” he said.
For electricity to go from the grid to an EV charger, it has to go through a step-down process, and Resilient Power uses semiconductors and a software control as opposed to large physical, mechanical hardware.
“We have a big need for this and as we’re mapping out our own needs for doing this, this solution is really interesting to us,” Peterson told CNBC.
Green hydrogen
Water can be split into its chemical pieces, oxygen and hydrogen, with electrical current in a process called electrolysis. That hydrogen can then be used in various ways to generate carbon-free energy.
If the energy used to power an electrolyzer is carbon-free, then the hydrogen created is called “green hydrogen.” Amazon has made several investments in this space.
ZeroAvia is building airplanes that are powered by hydrogen fuel cells — particularly important, says Peterson, as aviation will be one of the hardest industries to decarbonize.
Infinium makes electro-fuel, which would replace diesel or kerosene in aviation fuel. “The difference is instead of being extracted from the ground and refined like fossil fuels, it’s made from synthetic components. And the synthetic components are green hydrogen and captured carbon dioxide,” Peterson said.
Infinium Reactors
Photo courtesy Amazon
The fuel Infinium makes is 95% carbon neutral because it uses carbon dioxide that was captured, not extracted from the ground. But he acknowledges it’s a bridge technology toward a longer-term goal of finding completely carbon-free energy sources.
“At the end of the day, we would like not to burn fuel to begin with, and release CO2, but at least the CO2 that is being released is recycled for orbit captured previously. So it’s, it’s an a net basis, it’s, it’s, it’s very close to zero.”
Long duration energy storage
To use renewable energy like wind and solar on a large scale depends on battery technology to store energy when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.
Amazon is looking into long duration battery technology of various sizes and scales. Many long-duration batteries are very large and Peterson said Amazon will need batteries at sizes that are “appropriate” for the many use cases Amazon will need.
Materials: Reduction of and reinvention of plastics
For many consumers, Amazon is most visible through the packages that are delivered to their doorstep. In aggregate, those packages create a lot of waste.
The CMC Machinery system
Amazon
CMC Machinery, one of the investments announced Wednesday, has developed an automated packing machine that reduces the volume of boxes by approximately 24%. That lets Amazon reduce the size and number of plastic air pillows that go into the boxes, Peterson said. Overall, that could let Amazon reduce the use of as many as 1 billion plastic pillows by the end of 2022.
Longer term, Amazon is interested in technologies that can create more sustainable plastic alternatives, Peterson said.
“Can you create a plastic that’s not extractive? That does not use fossil fuels? And also, can you create of plastic that is biodegradable and compostable at scale?”
Amazon on Friday announced it would invest an additional $4 billion in Anthropic, the artificial intelligence startup founded by ex-OpenAI research executives.
The new funding brings the tech giant’s total investment to $8 billion, though Amazon will retain its position as a minority investor, according to Anthropic, the San Francisco-based company behind the Claude chatbot and AI model.
Amazon Web Services will also become Anthropic’s “primary cloud and training partner,” according to a blog post. From now on, Anthropic will use AWS Trainium and Inferentia chips to train and deploy its largest AI models.
Anthropic is the company behind Claude — one of the chatbots that, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, has exploded in popularity. Startups like Anthropic and OpenAI, alongside tech giants such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta, are all part of a generative AI arms race to ensure they don’t fall behind in a market predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade. Some, like Microsoft and Amazon, are backing generative AI startups with hefty investments as well as working on in-house generative AI.
The partnership announced Friday will also allow AWS customers “early access” to an Anthropic feature: the ability for an AWS customer to do fine-tuning with their own data on Anthropic’s Claude. It’s a unique benefit for AWS customers, according to a company blog post.
In March, Amazon’s $2.75 billion investment in Anthropic was the company’s largest outside investment in its three-decade history. The companies announced an initial $1.25 billion investment in September 2023.
Amazon does not have a seat on Anthropic’s board.
News of Amazon’s additional investment comes one month after Anthropic announced a significant milestone for the company: AI agents that can use a computer to complete complex tasks like a human would.
Anthropic’s new Computer Use capability, part of its two newest AI models, allows its tech to interpret what’s on a computer screen, select buttons, enter text, navigate websites and execute tasks through any software and real-time internet browsing.
The tool can “use computers in basically the same way that we do,” Jared Kaplan, Anthropic’s chief science officer, told CNBC in an interview last month, adding it can do tasks with “tens or even hundreds of steps.”
Amazon had early access to the tool, Anthropic told CNBC at the time, and early customers and beta testers included Asana, Canva and Notion. The company had been working on the tool since early this year, according to Kaplan.
In September, Anthropic rolled out Claude Enterprise, its biggest new product since its chatbot’s debut, designed for businesses looking to integrate Anthropic’s AI. In June, the company debuted its more powerful AI model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and in May, it rolled out its “Team” plan for smaller businesses.
Last year, Google committed to invest $2 billion in Anthropic, after previously confirming it had taken a 10% stake in the startup alongside a large cloud contract between the two companies.
LONDON — Apple and Google could face a competition investigation into their dominance of mobile web browsers and apps in the U.K.
The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority issued a report Friday with a provisional decision from an independent inquiry group tasked by the regulator with carrying out an in-depth review of the mobile browser markets.
In the report, the group recommended that the CMA investigates Apple and Google’s activities in mobile ecosystems under the new Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCC), a new U.K. law coming into force next year which seeks to prevent anti-competitive behavior in digital markets.
The DMCC is akin to the Digital Markets Act in the European Union. It gives the CMA the ability to designate firms as having “Strategic Market Status” (SMS) — which means they have a significant amount of market power in a certain digital business.
Under the rules, the CMA can impose major behavioral changes on firms that have SMS status, including ending “self-preferencing” of their own services, requiring interoperability — essentially allowing one piece of software to work with another smoothly — and banning anti-competitive behavior.
The CMA is required to undertake a formal investigation to give a firm SMS status.
For Apple specifically, the CMA inquiry group said it was concerned the tech giant’s App Store rules “restrict other competitors from being able to deliver new, innovative features that could benefit consumers” — for example, faster webpage loading on iPhone apps.
It added many smaller U.K. developers said they would like to use “progressive” web apps — which allow firms to offer apps outside of an app store — but that this technology “is not able to fully take off on iOS devices.”
The group also said it found a revenue-sharing agreement between Google and Apple to make Google the default search engine on iPhone “significantly reduces their financial incentives to compete in mobile browsers on iOS.”
“Markets work best when rival businesses are able to develop and bring innovative options to consumers,” Margot Daly, chair of the CMA’s independent inquiry group, said in a statement, adding that “competition between different mobile browsers is not working well and this is holding back innovation in the U.K.”
Apple said in a statement that it disagreed with the findings of the report and that it was concerned market interventions imposed under the DMCC “would undermine user privacy and hinder our ability to make the kind of technology that sets Apple apart.”
“Apple believes in thriving and dynamic markets where innovation can flourish. We face competition in every segment and jurisdiction where we operate, and our focus is always the trust of our users” an Apple spokesperson told CNBC via email.
Google was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
The CMA group had also looked into restrictions on the distribution of gaming services on Apple’s mobile app distribution platform. However, it’s now decided to drop this element of the investigation following a decision by the U.S. tech giant to allow cloud gaming services on App Store.
The regulator said interested parties have until Dec. 13 to share comments on its provisional findings. It expects to make a final decision in March 2025.
An iPhone 16 signage is seen on the window at the Fifth Avenue Apple Store on new products launch day on September 20, 2024 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images News | Getty Images
The Indonesian government expects Apple to increase its proposed $100 million investment into the country, according to state media, as the iPhone maker seeks clearance from Jakarta to sell its latest phones.
The American tech giant’s latest smartphone model doesn’t meet Indonesia’s 40% domestic content requirements for smartphones and tablets and hasn’t been granted clearance to be sold in the country.
The purpose of the ban is to protect local industry and jobs, with officials asking Apple to increase its investments and commitments to the economy in order to gain greater access.
According to a report from Indonesian state media, the country’s Ministry of Industry met with representatives from Apple on Thursday regarding its proposal to invest $100 million over two years.
The funds would go toward a research and development center program and professional development academy in the country, as per the report.
The company also plans to produce accessory product components, specifically mesh for Apple’s AirPods Max, starting in July 2025, it added.
Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.
While the new offer is 10 times larger than a proposal that was reported earlier, the government is still striving to sweeten the deal to get a “fair” commitment.
“From the government’s perspective, of course, we want this investment to be larger,” industry ministry spokesperson Febri Hendri Antoni Arif told state media on Thursday.
He said that a larger investment would help the development of Indonesia’s manufacturing sector, adding that its domestic industry was capable of supporting production of Apple devices such as chargers and accessories.
While Indonesia represents a small market for Apple, it also offers growth opportunities as it has the world’s fourth-largest population, according to Le Xuan Chiew, a Canalys analyst focusing on Apple strategy research.
“Its young, tech-savvy population with growing digital literacy aligns with Apple’s strategy to expand [global sales],” he said, noting that it also offers potential for manufacturing and assembly that supports Apple’s efforts to diversify its supply chain.
Success in this market requires a long-term approach, and Apple’s investment offer demonstrates a commitment to complying with local regulations and paving the way for future growth, he added.
