Amazon is reported to be making significant developments and investment in Cambridge, UK. They’ll be hiring 400 more boffins to join the 150 already in Cambridge and will occupy a new 60,000 sq facility right next to the railway station in the venerable university city.
The research and development lab will be working on the Alexa digital assistant, delivery drones and Echo smart speaker. The staff will be expert in mathematical modelling, speech science, machine learning and ‘knowledge engineering’
By the end of the year Amazon expects to have a total UK workforce growing to 24,000 over the course of 2017 (up 6k from 2016) and the majority will be working in the 15 fulfilment centres they plan to have by year end. It shows significant confidence from Amazon that they are investing not just in R&D as well as fulfilment in the UK. there is clearly little concern about the impact of Brexit.
Doug Gurr, UK country manager for Amazon says of the new roles and facility: “We are constantly inventing on behalf of our customers, and our development centres in Cambridge, Edinburgh and London play a major role in Amazon’s global innovation story. By the end of this year, we will have more than 1,500 innovation-related roles here in Britain, working on everything from machine learning and drone technology to streaming video technology and Amazon Web Services.”
