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China’s internet giants battle at home and abroad

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Three kingdoms, two empires

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China’s internet giants

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Why an election offers the chance of a better Brexit

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Three kingdoms, two empires

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SHANGHAI

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THERE was a time, not that long ago, when China’s big internet companies were dismissed by investors in Silicon Valley as marginal firms with a tendency to copy Western products. Not any more. Today they are monsters with increasingly hefty international ambitions.
Alibaba, China’s biggest e-commerce group, handles more transactions each year than do eBay and Amazon combined. Jack Ma, its chairman, pledges to serve 2bn consumers around the world …
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Three kingdoms, two empires: China’s internet giants go global

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How Otto, a German e-commerce firm, uses artificial intelligence

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Automatic for the people

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Algorithmic retailing

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As Turkey votes on a new constitution, it is sliding into dictatorship

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Automatic for the people

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HAMBURG

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A GLIMPSE into the future of retailing is available in a smallish office in Hamburg. From there, Otto, a German e-commerce merchant, is using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve its activities. The firm is already deploying the technology to make decisions at a scale, speed and accuracy that surpass the capabilities of its human employees.
Big data and “machine learning” have been used in retailing for years, notably by …
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Automatic for the people: How Germany’s Otto uses artificial intelligence

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Finland shows the way with a project expected to span 100,000 years

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To the next ice age and beyond

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Disposing of nuclear waste

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As Turkey votes on a new constitution, it is sliding into dictatorship

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To the next ice age and beyond

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OLKILUOTO

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A STEEP 5km ramp corkscrews down from the mouth of a tunnel (pictured above) into the bowels of the Earth. At the bottom, a yellow rig is drilling boreholes into the rock face, preparing it for blasting. The air is chilly, but within a few years, it may feel more like a Finnish sauna. Buried in holes in the floor will be copper canisters, 5.2 metres long, containing the remains of some of the world’s …
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To the next ice age and beyond: How to dispose of nuclear waste

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Finland shows the way with a project expected to span 100,000 years

Print Headline: 

To the next ice age and beyond

Print Fly Title: 

Disposing of nuclear waste

UK Only Article: 
standard article

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As Turkey votes on a new constitution, it is sliding into dictatorship

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To the next ice age and beyond

Location: 

OLKILUOTO

Main image: 

20170415_irp003.jpg

A STEEP 5km ramp corkscrews down from the mouth of a tunnel (pictured above) into the bowels of the Earth. At the bottom, a yellow rig is drilling boreholes into the rock face, preparing it for blasting. The air is chilly, but within a few years, it may feel more like a Finnish sauna. Buried in holes in the floor will be copper canisters, 5.2 metres long, containing the remains of some of the world’s …
Source: Utilities
To the next ice age and beyond: How to dispose of nuclear waste

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Once darlings of the global startup scene, the sheen has come off Indian consumer internet firms

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Delayed delivery

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Indian e-commerce

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How to manage the computer-security threat

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Delayed delivery

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MUMBAI

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THE promise of virgin commercial territory up for grabs, startups vying to lure investors’ money even faster than they burn through it, and Amazon trying to capture all the spoils: the recent scramble for the Indian online consumer has had more than a whiff of the late-90s dotcom boom about it. The exuberance seemed justified. India is the world’s fastest-growing large economy, its consumers increasingly clutching smartphones and fattening …
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Delayed delivery: Growth at Indian internet consumer firms has stalled

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AMAZON is now the world’s fifth most valuable listed company. Yet investors and the company operate on an almost unfathomable premise: Amazon is just getting started. Morgan Stanley expects that the company’s revenue will rise from 6bn last year to more than 0bn by 2025. That would be unprecedented. No company of Amazon’s size has ever grown so fast for so long. If Amazon even comes close to achieving this, the implications for consumers and other businesses would be profound. What is it about Amazon that gives rise to such optimism?In an age of short-termism, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, prefers steady investment to drive future growth. Shareholders support him because, despite a few failures, Amazon’s investments have generally been successful. Amazon’s e-commerce site and Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provides cloud computing, both benefit from virtuous cycles. The more sellers use the e-commerce site, the more buyers it attracts, the more Amazon invests to improve its offerings, which lures more sellers and buyers. Similarly, the more AWS invests in software (more than 1,000 new tools last year), the more enticing it becomes for developers and corporate customers, the more it can invest, which makes companies ever less likely to move their data.Some of the best investments …
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The Economist explains: Why investors are so keen on Amazon