Inside Dartford's Amazon warehouse

Around 2500 people are working ahead of the festive period to help deliver gifts alongside an army of robots.   Oliver Leader de Saxe reports.

Transcript

00:00it's not quite Santa's workshop. But in the shadow of the Dartford Crossing,

00:05the busiest Amazon warehouse in Europe is gearing up to make the Christmas magic happen.

00:11Two and a half thousand workers, some hired just for the festive season,

00:16are working day and night to distribute deliveries across the South East.

00:22But with countless items being stocked, stacked and sent off,

00:28the global delivery giant has swapped the elves for something a little more futuristic.

00:34AI is in everything we do. Everywhere you look, AI is involved in our process.

00:40Amazon's been working with machine learning for over 25 years now,

00:44whether it's the optimization of a parcel coming in or on the road.

00:48And that journey starts months before a package will be even delivered to the door.

00:53And we're investing heavily in gendered AI as we believe it's going to be

00:56something that's going to transform every application of our personal, professional lives.

01:01Amazon couldn't do what they do without one of these, the Hercules Drive robot.

01:06There's thousands of these giant Roomba-style machines scuttling around the warehouse.

01:12And they can carry around 800 kilograms, the weight of a grand piano.

01:17And they make sure the goods that you need get to your doorstep

01:20by delivering them to the right place in storage.

01:23So basically, our robots move the shelves with the products to our stores and pickers.

01:29So stores and pickers, they can put or remove the items.

01:33Every day, we make sure everything is running smoothly, if motor is working,

01:37if they are clean and the wheels are working properly.

01:42But artificial intelligence is energy intensive.

01:46One UN report suggests that the number of data centers required for machine learning worldwide

01:54has surged to over 8 million, with energy consumption doubling every four years,

02:01in no small part due to our reliance on AI.

02:05And while Amazon's overall emissions fell by 3% last year,

02:11emissions as a result of direct operations, like delivering packages and data services,

02:19rose to more than 14 million tons, according to Amazon's own sustainability report.

02:28So with 30,000 robots and miles of conveyor belts in just this warehouse alone,

02:34is Amazon boxing us into a high emission future?

02:38Amazon signed the climate pledge in 2019.

02:41And with that, made two commitments.

02:43Number one, by the year 2030, all of our data centers, warehouses, grocery stores

02:47would be using 100% renewable energy, which I'm happy to say by last year alone,

02:52we were able to reach that.

02:53So seven years ahead of plan.

02:54By the year 2040, to be carbon net neutral, which involves tons of things.

02:59As you see, like with our packaging, we're reducing our packaging every day.

03:03But with Amazon promising to invest even more into their robots in the coming years,

03:08some here in Kent may be left wondering what's next for the people behind the presents.

03:16Oliver Leader, The Saks for KNTV in Dartford.