Amazon’s AI Ambitions Soar Amid Stock Surge and Global Challenges
1min read Amazon (AMZN) shares increased by 1.05% in the last week, marking a 5.46% rise over the previous week. Since the beginning of the year, Amazon’s stock has climbed by 36.82%, bringing its latest market valuation to approximately $2.186 trillion.
Recently, Amazon has been developing a new generative artificial intelligence that goes beyond text to also handle images and videos. This initiative aims to reduce reliance on the AI start-up Anthropic. The new AI model, internally code-named Olympus, is designed to understand scenes in images and videos, facilitating smoother searches for customers through simple text prompts, such as finding a winning basketball shot.
In a move that complements its AI advancements, Amazon recently invested $4 billion in Anthropic, a rival to OpenAI. This follows a similar investment made last September, highlighting Amazon's commitment to leveraging generative AI technologies to enhance their services. It is anticipated that Amazon might announce the release of Olympus at their upcoming AWS annual customer conference.
In legislative news, the European Commission announced the conclusion of its investigation into state aid tax rulings granted by Luxembourg and the Netherlands to companies including Amazon, Fiat, and Starbucks. The Commission confirmed that these companies did not receive selective tax advantages that violate EU state aid rules. Originally, the Commission had alleged that Luxembourg's past tax rulings violated state aid rules, but these decisions were overturned by the EU courts.
Furthermore, Amazon's Japanese subsidiary is facing scrutiny from Japan's Fair Trade Commission for allegedly violating antitrust laws. The company is suspected of improperly urging sellers to lower their prices on its e-commerce platform, in exchange for prominent product placement. This investigation follows a previous probe in 2018, where Amazon Japan was accused of making suppliers share the cost of discounts offered on the site.
In the tech ecosystem, December signaled a deeper strategic alignment as Fujitsu expanded its global strategic collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS), underscoring the continued strengthening of Amazon's cloud computing service capacity and partnerships.