Amazon opens new development centre in Cambridge

Amazon has opened a new development centre site in Cambridge that will be home to 400 employees.

Located at One Station Square adjacent to Cambridge Station, the new building is a 60,000 sq ft development that will be home to over 400 employees including machine learning scientists, knowledge engineers, data scientists, mathematical modellers, speech scientists and software engineers when at full capacity. Amazon is recruiting as part of its increased expansion plans in the city.

The new building is Amazon’s second Development Centre site in the Cambridge city centre and is housing research and development (R&D) teams working on a range of projects that serve customers around the world including Amazon Devices such as Echo voice-controlled speakers and the recently-announced Amazon Cloud Cam, Amazon Alexa, Prime Air, and core machine learning and retail systems.

The Amazon Development Centre Cambridge campus is keeping its original building at Castle Park, where additional Alexa teams will work.

Digital Minister Matt Hancock offered a quote in support, saying: “I'm delighted Amazon has chosen the UK for its new research and development centre. This will create hundreds of highly skilled jobs and sends a clear signal to the world we are open for business.

"We're determined to make the UK the best place to start and grow a digital firm, are working hard to deliver our groundbreaking Digital Strategy and Amazon's latest investment is another boost for our world-leading digital economy."

Doug Gurr, UK country manager at Amazon, added: “Cambridge has been a centre of academic and intellectual excellence for over 500 years so we are delighted to open our second site in the city. The exciting and innovative new products and services developed here will benefit millions of customers around the world, complementing the work that goes on in our other Development Centres in London and Edinburgh. I hope this new building will contribute towards our global innovation story with voice recognition, streaming video, machine learning and drone technology all being developed right here in the UK.”

To mark the opening Amazon is working with Cambridge LaunchPad, a programme that inspires young people to take a career in STEM and works with local employers to engage with schoolchildren so they can learn about the possibilities that STEM can offer. The programme aims to offer young people in the Cambridgeshire areas rewarding experiences.

Anne Bailey, co-founder of Form the Future CIC who runs Cambridge LaunchPad, said: “We’re thrilled to welcome Amazon as a partner for Cambridge Launchpad. Amazon’s support will help inspire a love and fascination of engineering, science and technology in young people, and help educate them about the exciting career opportunities that exist in STEM.”

The new facility is part of Amazon's "significant investment" in the UK, with the company investing more than £6.4bn in the UK in building and running its operations since 2010, it said. The company also has Development Centres in London, primarily focusing on R&D for Amazon’s global Prime Video Service and Edinburgh, focusing on improving Amazon’s online and mobile shopping experience. These Development Centres and Amazon Web Services mean that by the end of the year Amazon will have over 1,500 high tech roles in the UK, working on technologies that benefit its customers around the world.