Amazon To Invest $4 Billion To Triple US Rural Delivery Network By 2026
Amazon announced on Wednesday that it plans to invest over $4 billion to grow its delivery network in rural areas of the United States by the end of 2026.
This move is part of Amazon's effort to make deliveries faster for customers living in small towns and countryside areas, Udit Madan, Senior Vice President, Amazon Worldwide Operations, said in a statement. Amazon to Triple Rural Network, Cut Delivery Times in Half
Amazon said that once the expansion is finished, it will add over 200 new delivery stations. This will make its rural delivery network three times bigger than it is now.
The company explained that this will help bring products closer to customers in small towns and rural areas and will reduce average delivery times by half. The e-commerce giant hopes that quicker shipping will lead to more orders from people in these locations.
Madan, said, "At a time where many logistics providers are backing away from serving rural customers because of cost to serve, we are stepping up our investment to make their lives easier and better." Amazon to Create Jobs Amid Earnings Report and White House Criticism
The company said that when the new delivery sites open, it plans to create around 170 jobs at each location. This news comes just before Amazon is expected to share its first-quarter earnings on Thursday.
"Once this expansion is complete, our network will be able to deliver over a billion more packages each year to customers living in over 13,000 zip codes spanning 1,200,000 square miles—an area the size of Alaska, California, and Texas combined," Madan added.
The news of Amazon's rural expansion follows criticism from the White House after reports claimed Amazon was planning to show how much of a product's price comes from tariffs. Amazon responded by saying it wouldn't go ahead with that plan and had only thought about doing it for items sold on its discount section, called Haul, CNBC reported.
Since President Trump took office in January, several major tech companies like Apple, IBM, and Nvidia have promised to increase their investments in the U.S. to support local manufacturing and create more jobs. Amazon Speeds Up Delivery with Bigger Network and In-House Logistics
For the past few years, Amazon has been working hard to deliver packages faster. After setting two-day delivery as the standard, the company moved toward getting orders to customers in just one day or even within a few hours in some cases.
To make this possible, Amazon built a large network of warehouses across the U.S. and took more control of its delivery process instead of relying on other companies. In 2022, Amazon said it was on track to become the biggest package delivery service in the country, ahead of UPS and FedEx.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
DW
a day ago
- DW
Bezos' Venice wedding party moved following protests – DW – 06/25/2025
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez's Venice wedding party was moved out of the city center due to security reasons. Many have protested because they say the lavish plans are yet another sign of exploitation of the city. Billionaire and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has changed the venue of the party celebrating his wedding with former TV presenter Lauren Sanchez, following protests against the event scheduled for the weekend in Italy's Venice. The wedding party, which was to be held on Saturday in a popular and central nightlife area, in Cannaregio's Scuola Grande di Santa Maria della Misericordia, was moved to an isolated, less accessible part of the lagoon city for security reasons. The highly anticipated event, dubbed "the wedding of the century," is set to draw a bevy of celebrities, including US President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, both of whom have already arrived in Venice. The wedding party, which will include some 250 guests, will now be held in the Arsenale, an exhibition space for the Venice Biennale art fair. The venue, which lies further from the center, was originally a shipyard serving the Venetian Republic's maritime empire during its heyday in the 15th century. The venue is considered safer than the medieval former religious school where the party was initially scheduled to be held. It is surrounded by water, making it impossible to reach by land when bridges are raised. Protesters including residents and pressure groups have rallied against the wedding ceremony for weeks, arguing that the event will transform the city into a private amusement park for the rich. Protesters ask city authorities to prioritize local needs over tourism, with more protests scheduled on Saturday on Venice's canals, bridges and narrow streets in an effort to turn the event into a "nightmare" for the Amazon founder and his guests. "The news that Bezos has run away from the Misericordia is a great victory for us," Reuters quoted Tommaso Cacciari, a leader of the "No Space for Bezos" campaign, as saying. The exact date and location of the wedding have so far been kept a secret for security reasons. The wedding and the parties held on its sidelines are expected to cost €40-€48 ($46.5 - $55.6 million), according to Luca Zaia, president of the Veneto region that comprises the city. Bezos, in parallel, will make sizable charity donations, including €1 million for Corila, an academic consortium that studies Venice's lagoon ecosystem, according to Italian media reports. Zaia defended the wedding and criticized the protesters, saying that it would bring revenue of up to €48 million to local businesses, via the 90 private jets that will carry guests to nearby airports.
Int'l Business Times
a day ago
- Int'l Business Times
US Judge Backs Using Copyrighted Books To Train AI
A US federal judge has sided with Anthropic regarding training its artificial intelligence models on copyrighted books without authors' permission, a decision with the potential to set a major legal precedent in AI deployment. District Court Judge William Alsup ruled on Monday that the company's training of its Claude AI models with books bought or pirated was allowed under the "fair use" doctrine in the US Copyright Act. "Use of the books at issue to train Claude and its precursors was exceedingly transformative and was a fair use," Alsup wrote in his decision. "The technology at issue was among the most transformative many of us will see in our lifetimes," Alsup added in his 32-page decision, comparing AI training to how humans learn by reading books. Tremendous amounts of data are needed to train large language models powering generative AI. Musicians, book authors, visual artists and news publications have sued various AI companies that used their data without permission or payment. AI companies generally defend their practices by claiming fair use, arguing that training AI on large datasets fundamentally transforms the original content and is necessary for innovation. "We are pleased that the court recognized that using 'works to train LLMs was transformative,'" an Anthropic spokesperson said in response to an AFP query. The judge's decision is "consistent with copyright's purpose in enabling creativity and fostering scientific progress," the spokesperson added. The ruling stems from a class-action lawsuit filed by authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson, who accused Anthropic of illegally copying their books to train Claude, the company's AI chatbot that rivals ChatGPT. However, Alsup rejected Anthropic's bid for blanket protection, ruling that the company's practice of downloading millions of pirated books to build a permanent digital library was not justified by fair use protections. Along with downloading of books from websites offering pirated works, Anthropic bought copyrighted books, scanned the pages and stored them in digital format, according to court documents. Anthropic's aim was to amass a library of "all the books in the world" for training AI models on content as deemed fit, the judge said in his ruling. While training AI models on the pirated content posed no legal violation, downloading pirated copies to build a general-purpose library constituted copyright infringement, regardless of eventual training use. The case will now proceed to trial on damages related to the pirated library copies, with potential penalties including financial damages. Anthropic said it disagreed with going to trial on this part of the decision and was evaluating its legal options. Valued at $61.5 billion and heavily backed by Amazon, Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI executives. The company, known for its Claude chatbot and AI models, positions itself as focused on AI safety and responsible development.
Int'l Business Times
2 days ago
- Int'l Business Times
The Billionaire And The TV Anchor: Bezoz, Sanchez's Whirlwind Romance
Their whirlwind romance began under a cloud of scandal, but now Lauren Sanchez, a former morning TV anchor with a love of flying, is set to wed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the world's fourth-richest person, in a Venice extravaganza. Both were married to other people when they began secretly dating sometime before 2019. In January of that year, Bezos and his first wife, the publicity-shy MacKenzie Scott, announced their divorce, stating their intention to continue "our shared lives as friends." Bezos met Scott in 1992 while they were both working at a New York hedge fund. They quit their jobs to co-found Amazon in a rented garage in Bellevue, Washington. A month after the split, Bezos publicly accused the US tabloid the National Enquirer of blackmail in an offer to prevent the publication of salacious photos and text messages with Sanchez. He suggested the effort was orchestrated by Saudi Arabia, whose leaders were reportedly upset with how The Washington Post -- which Bezos owns -- covered the murder of its reporter Jamal Khashoggi. However, Sanchez later revealed that her brother sold the phone content to the Enquirer for a reported $200,000. With his new romance flourishing, Bezos stepped down as CEO of Amazon in 2021. Bezos, 61, stated his primary reason for pulling back was to dedicate more time and energy to Blue Origin, his space exploration company, and charity work. He remains Amazon's executive chairman, the retail giant's biggest shareholder, and still holds considerable influence over the company's direction. Bezos and Sanchez are fixtures at Oscar parties and other celebrity haunts. Sanchez often uses Instagram to communicate, sometimes expressing her love for Bezos or her children. In 2023, they announced their engagement. Bezos has notably changed his look during his relationship with the exuberantly dressed Sanchez, trading in the wardrobe of a scrawny tech executive for that of a style-conscious playboy with a more muscular physique. "Is it just me, or is it hot outside?" Sanchez wrote in the caption of a 2023 Instagram post showing a shirtless Bezos in swimming trunks climbing the ladder of his $500 million mega yacht. Before her relationship with Bezos, Sanchez, 55, was not a nationally known figure. A third-generation Mexican American originally from New Mexico, Sanchez has dyslexia and has made awareness of the learning disability one of her missions. She has shared that she assumed she was "stupid" until a community college professor informed her she had the condition and was perfectly smart. "It changed my life," helping her win a scholarship to the University of Southern California, Sanchez told the Wall Street Journal. She dropped out of USC to begin her TV career at a local station in Phoenix, Arizona, before working on Fox Sports and Extra, a TV tabloid-style news show in Los Angeles, which would become her home for decades. In 1999, she narrowly missed national fame when she was turned down for a spot on "The View," the talk show hosted by TV news legend Barbara Walters. Sanchez instead became a familiar face to Angelenos as a co-host of a local morning news show from 2011 to 2017. During most of those years, she was married to Hollywood super-agent Patrick Whitesell, with whom she has two children, Evan and Ella. She also has a first son, Nikko, from a relationship with former NFL star Tony Gonzalez. Bezos has four children with his ex-wife: a son, Preston, born in 2000, as well as two sons and one adopted daughter whose ages and names are not public. Sanchez has a deep passion for flying. After leaving morning television, she founded a company specializing in aerial filming and served as a consultant on Christopher Nolan's film Dunkirk. "This space is dominated by men," she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2017. "But there's nothing physical about flying a helicopter... There's no reason more women aren't in this." Her passion for the skies also led her to space in April as part of an all-female flight on Blue Origin, though the 11-minute trip has been criticized as wasteful. Among the crew were pop singer Katy Perry, who was also a guest at Sanchez's bachelorette party in Paris last month. The A-list guest list for the party also included Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenner, and Eva Longoria. Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez attend an event in 2021 AFP Lauren Sanchez arrives at the 2011 Vanity Fair Oscar party with then husband Hollywood executive Patrick Whitesell AFP
