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Zoox, the self-driving car company owned by Amazon, will begin charging fares for rides in Las Vegas on August 10. This marks the first time the business will earn revenue from the public after previously offering only free test rides.

While this is a small start compared to the company's retail and cloud arms, it is a major step toward making its multi-billion dollar investment in autonomous cars pay off. Moving from testing to a paid service shows the technology is reliable enough to compete with traditional ride-sharing and other robotaxi rivals.

Source: CNBC

Amazon is overhauling its data center campus in Indiana to give its artificial intelligence teams more computing power. The upgrade is designed to support the development of frontier models, which are the most advanced and capable versions of AI.

This move shows that despite cutting some jobs in its AI division last month, the company is still spending heavily to build its own technology. By upgrading its own facilities, Amazon can run these powerful models on its own chips, which helps it avoid paying high fees to outside hardware makers.

Amazon spent years working with officials in Gilroy, California, to plan a $2 billion data center that few residents knew about until construction started. Now that the project is public, some locals are pushing back against how the deal was handled. This is a minor hurdle for a company that is spending roughly $200 billion this year on infrastructure. While local disputes can slow down specific projects, they rarely change the overall pace of the company's massive expansion into AI and cloud computing.

Source: WSJ

Amazon's pharmacy unit is launching a new program to provide weight-loss drugs to Medicare beneficiaries for a flat $50 monthly fee. This move uses a federal bridge program designed to make these high-demand treatments more accessible to older adults.

This is a smart way for Amazon to grow its healthcare business. By making it easier and cheaper for a large group of people to get these drugs, the company is building a reason for more customers to use its pharmacy service instead of a traditional drugstore.

Source: Reuters

A lawsuit claims Amazon should have known that certain protein powders sold on its site contained toxic heavy metals. The case argues the company failed to protect shoppers from these products. While these types of product liability suits are common for a marketplace of this size, they highlight a recurring challenge. Amazon often argues it is just the middleman, but regulators and courts are increasingly looking at whether the company should be held responsible for the safety of everything it lists.