Amazon logo on brick office building facade with windows, San Francisco, California, Aug. 29, 2025. Smith Collection | Gado | Archive Photos | Getty Images
This is CNBC's Morning Squawk newsletter. Subscribe here to receive future editions in your inbox. Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day:
1. Amazon's cull
Amazon is laying off 14,000 workers in its latest round of corporate cuts, the company announced this morning. The layoffs are expected to be the biggest reduction in the company's history, CNBC's Annie Palmer reported yesterday. Nearly every business is expected to be impacted by the cuts, according to a person familiar with the matter. Beth Galetti, Amazon's senior vice president of people experience and technology, wrote in a blog post that the company needs to be "organized more leanly" and have fewer layers. Amazon is the second-largest private employer in the U.S. with upwards of 1.5 million employees. The 14,000 cuts announced this morning represent about 4% of its corporate and tech workforce. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said earlier this year that the Washington-based company could shrink its workforce by embracing AI. The firm is part of a cohort of large-cap companies that have seen their AI-related productivity increase as the technology becomes mainstream.
2. Chips on the table
Budrul Chukrut | SOPA Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Qualcomm announced yesterday that it would release artificial intelligence accelerator chips. The initiative makes the company a new competitor for Nvidia and AMD , underscoring the growing market for equipment tied to AI data centers. Here's what to know: Qualcomm said that its AI200 and AI250 chips will debut in 2026 and 2027, respectively. The data center chips are based on AI parts already in Qualcomm's smartphone chips.
So far, Nvidia has dominated the AI chip industry, accounting for more than 90% of the graphics processing units, or GPUs, in the market.
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon told CNBC's "Squawk Box" this morning that energy efficiency and lower operating costs differentiate his company's offerings.
Shares of Qualcomm surged 11% in yesterday's session, making it the stock's best day since April.
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