Former Amazon vice president poached for Ocado board August 24, 2021 Online retailer Ocado has poached a former Amazon vice president and robotics expert for its board, as the supermarket looks to broaden its market share. Incoming independent non-executive director and board veteran, Nadia Shouraboura, is set to join Ocado at the turn of September. Shares lifted 2.43 per cent by the afternoon, taking the group’s [...]
Baidu-backed AI voice assistant firm Xiaodu racks up $5.1bn valuation August 24, 2021 Chinese tech giant Baidu has confirmed its artificial intelligence voice assistant firm Xiaodu Technology has racked up an eyewatering $5.1bn valuation today. Following the artificial intelligence (AI) firm’s Series B fundraiser, Baidu will remain a majority shareholder. The lofty valuation comes in amid a local regulatory clampdown, spearheaded by Beijing, which has locked eyes on [...]
WPP snaps up delivery tech firm Satalia in AI push August 23, 2021 WPP has snapped up a London-based tech firm specialising in home delivery services in a move that will boost the ad giant’s artificial intelligence offering. The FTSE media group today said it had acquired Satalia, which is one of the UK’s fastest-growing tech companies and serves major clients such as BT, Tesco and Unilever. Following [...]
Action Fraud was fruitless agency – its downfall should teach us the perils of letting skulduggery go unpunished August 21, 2021 At the end of July, the Government announced it would scrap Action Fraud, the national gateway for triaging and allocating fraud complaints for police investigation. The decision is long overdue. Official reports criticising Action Fraud’s performance have been practically an annual event. The repeated criticism was that Action Fraud was a toothless crime-recording body – a [...]
Lamborghini delivers record-breaking Urus SUV to London August 20, 2021 Having left the Sant’Agata production line last month, Lamborghini London dealership H.R. Owen has just delivered the 15,000th Urus SUV.
HSBC to pull together $2bn IPO for China’s biggest AI firm SenseTime August 17, 2021 HSBC is working with China’s largest artificial intelligence group SenseTime to form a Hong Kong listing, according to reports. SoftBank-backed SeneTime’s initial public offering (IPO) could wire in at least $2bn, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. China International Capital is helping HSBC arrange the float for the firm. The company has decided [...]
Life sciences sector alert to evolving skills challenge August 16, 2021 ‘We stand on the cusp of an era of cures, in which new technologies make previously terminal diseases treatable or curable’: so states the UK ‘Life Sciences Vision’, which outlines a 10-year strategy for the sector.The vision, unveiled last month, states that life sciences will be one of the great drivers of growth in the [...]
How a combination of skilled people and AI will shape tech and telecoms August 5, 2021 Machines will undertake more tasks than humans by 2025, compared to 71 per cent being performed by humans in 2018. Although this finding, from the World Economic Forum, might seem scary, the good news is that the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) could create 58 million ‘net’ new jobs. But if you’re in the tech [...]
City Moves: Who’s switching jobs in the Square Mile this week? August 4, 2021 City A.M.’s Millie Turner provides a roundup of the most important hires and job moves across the City, every Wednesday afternoon. Email citymoves@cityam.com to be featured. TopHat appoints former McLaren group boss as CFO Goldman Sachs-backed housing company TopHat has bagged McLaren’s former boss as its new chief financial officer to join its King Cross offices. Paul Buddin, who left the McLaren [...]
West Coast wildfires rage across record areas in the United States, but Silicon Valley thinks it has the answer August 4, 2021 Wildfire season in the United States has devastated swathes of the West Coast in a way not seen since the disastrous summer of 2017. The problem is getting worse across numerous states. This year, 37,803 fires have raged, burning more than 3.4 million acres, both significantly up on last year. As of August 1, there [...]