Amazon to invest €10bn in Europe while creating 25,000 more jobs
Amazon is to invest more than €10 billion in expanding and modernising its European fulfilment centres with new robotics while creating 25,000 more jobs.
Central to the plans is the next generation of Amazon’s autonomous Proteus robot which can now operate anywhere items need to be moved across sites and not just in dock areas.
Subscribe to TRBThe company said in a statement: “Using advances in AI, employees can now direct Proteus with plain, conversational text-based prompts without the need for technical commands or programming interfaces.
“An employee tells it what needs to be done, and the robot figures out the priority, the route, and the timing.”
With the plans announced at its Delivering the Future event in London, the company said the investment will also include the expansion of ultra-fast delivery options to more international cities, and a major employee upskilling exercise.
In addition, Amazon will be expanding Vulcan, its first robot with a sense of touch, and Stark, a new robotic system that works alongside employees to pick full totes from conveyors and place them on carts.
The company is planning to grow its European fulfilment centre workforce by 25,000 over the coming years. It is also committing $1 billion to its Career Choice programme by 2030 to give more people access to fully funded training for careers in high demand fields like cybersecurity, software development, logistics, renewable energy and mechatronics.
Amazon said: “These investments reflect Amazon’s broader push to use AI and robotics to support its workforce by taking on repetitive and physically demanding tasks so employees can focus on higher-skilled roles while customers get their orders faster.”
