Member Article

Amazon to triple headcount at its Cambridge R&D centre

Online retail giant Amazon is to triple the number of experts at its core UK research and development centre in Cambridge after announcing plans to open a new development site in the city.

The facility, which is due to open in the autumn, will house over 400 highly skilled professionals and tech experts, including machine learning and data scientists, software engineers and speech scientists.

Encompassing 60,000 sq ft, the new development centre will be housed within the CB1 business district at One The Square, with its current development team, which works on headline projects including Alexa, Kindle and Echo amongst others, moving to the new site once it opens.

Its current R&D facility at Castle Hill will become solely dedicated to the development of its Prime Air drone delivery programme.

The plans have been hailed by Minister of State for Digital and Culture Matt Hancock who said: “This is fantastic news - Amazon’s increased investment in developing cutting-edge technology in Cambridge is another vote of confidence in the UK as a world-leading centre of invention and innovation.”

Doug Gurr, UK Country Manager, Amazon, commented: “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.”