Bürohr – Business news of the week: ABB wants to revolutionize industrial production with a new “warehouse robot”.

2024-01-13 18:14:10

ABB wants to revolutionize industrial production with a new “warehouse robot”.

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Published today at 7:14 p.m

The new “warehouse robot” from ABB.

On Thursday, the Swiss industrial group ABB presented under Boss Björn Rosengren a kind of revolution for industrial production on the ETH campus. The new “warehouse robots” can no longer just follow pre-prepared paths and carry out their orders, as before; they recognize their surroundings immediately and, like humans, can intuitively adapt to sudden changes. They share their data using artificial intelligence (AI), creating a kind of swarm intelligence that makes them ever better. ABB presented a video showing how the industrial group imagines the factory of the future: automatic production and the robots that navigate between them, charging car parts or bringing spare parts over gigantic distances. Inspiring, but with one drawback: the video seemed a bit lifeless for a long time. Because there were no people there. But at the end, when the delivery was at its destination, they still looked at people, a kind of quality control. But a technical solution will certainly soon be found for this too.

The banking industry suffers from a shortage of skilled workers

The banks in Switzerland are doing well, very well in fact. This is shown by the latest edition of the EY banking barometer Olaf Töpfer, Partner and Head of Banking & Capital Services at the auditor, presented this week. 87 percent of the banks surveyed expect growing earnings, at least in the short term, thanks to a turnaround in interest rates and a stable real estate market. Nevertheless, not everything that glitters is gold: the banking industry is also suffering from a shortage of skilled workers. The collapse of Credit Suisse has not helped eliminate the deficits in recent months. EY suspects that former big bankers often go into the application process with salary expectations that are too high. Private banks and regional banks in particular cite monetary benefits as the biggest challenge when recruiting talent. However, this is not the case with the cantonal banks. The state guarantee apparently also represents a competitive advantage in the labor market. Only five percent of the financial institutions surveyed mentioned this point. Last year it was eleven percent. But at some point even the most generous social plan comes to an end. And then suddenly smaller banks are attractive employers again.

Microsoft briefly became the most valuable company again

Many will still remember: There was a time when there was no way around Microsoft. Windows was almost mandatory on computers and was the founder of Microsoft Bill Gates the richest person in the world. But then Apple came along and presented one innovation after another: iPhone, smartwatch, the first tablet. Apple was considered cool and Microsoft was somehow considered dusty. But the wind has now changed somewhat, especially due to its investments in the chat GPT inventor Open AI. Microsoft is currently flying high. And so it happened that Microsoft briefly pushed Apple off the throne of the most valuable company for the first time since 2021 on Thursday, with a market value of $2.903 billion to $2.871 billion. However, the gap between the two is very small, so it will remain a head-to-head race. However, as long as the Chinese market, which is important for Apple, continues to weaken, Microsoft will probably have slight advantages.