|
ISM Services PMI: Highest Level Since October 2024
S services activity expanded in December at the fastest pace in more than a year, fueled by solid demand growth and a pickup in hiring. The Institute for Supply Management’s index of services rose 1.8 points to 54.4, the highest since October 2024, the group said Wednesday. Readings above 50 indicate expansion in the largest part of the economy. The December figure exceeded all projections in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The services gauge is at odds with a struggling manufacturing sector. Separate figures from ISM on Monday showed December factory activity shrank by the most since 2024.
New orders expanded by the most since September 2024 and a measure of business activity, which parallels the ISM’s factory output gauge, climbed to a one-year high. Export bookings grew at the fastest pace in more than a year. Eleven industries reported growth last month, led by retail trade, finance and insurance, and accommodation and food services. Five contracted, including management of companies and support services. Meanwhile, ISM’s index of prices paid for services and materials showed the slowest growth in nine months.
Read more at Yahoo Finance
Alaska Airlines Buys More Than 100 Boeing Jets In Carrier’s Biggest Order Ever
Alaska Airlines is buying more than 100 Boeing jets, a purchase that the carrier’s fleet chief said will ensure it has locked in sought-after order slots through the middle of the next decade to expand. The order, Alaska’s largest ever, announced Wednesday, includes 105 yet-to-be-certified Boeing 737 Max 10 jets. Alaska is also buying five 787-10 Dreamliners, using its previous purchase options for those long-haul jets as it charts international expansion. Alaska, which merged with Hawaiian Airlines in 2024, had previously ordered more than 40 Max 10 planes. The new order includes options for 35 more. Fifty-three of the planes in Wednesday’s order are new, and 52 are from options the airline is exercising.
Boeing has more than 6,000 aircraft on backorder, but Alaska’s purchase plans are a vote of confidence in airplane maker, whose 737 factory 10 miles away from the carrier’s headquarters gave Alaska a 737 Max 9 two years ago without key bolts installed in a door plug. That panel blew out of the plane on Jan. 5, 2024, as it climbed out of Portland, Oregon, stunning travelers, though there were no serious physical injuries.
Read more at CNBC
Bosch Plans To Invest Over $2.9 Billion In Artificial Intelligence By The End Of 2027 To Boost Productivity And Power New Products
Germany’s Robert Bosch said Monday it will invest over 2.5 billion euros ($2.93 billion) in the application and development of AI by the end of 2027 as it presented new AI-based driver-assist systems that allow features such as automatically searching for a parking space, and a new range of sensors to aid driving and help robots recognize surroundings and movements. Bosch last year said it would seek to harness AI’s productivity gains in areas like manufacturing and improving supply-chain efficiency to reduce costs, as strained market conditions, heightened competition and difficulties penetrating markets with new technologies saw the company announce 13,000 job cuts by the end of 2030. The cuts came on top of 9,000 redundancies announced the year before.
The announcement was made at a trade show in Las Vegas, where Bosch said it will sign a memorandum of understanding to continue its collaboration with Microsoft, which will explore technology to optimize production at factories through the use of agentic artificial intelligence. Agentic AI can interpret large amounts of data, make largely autonomous decisions and execute tasks in order to optimize production, maintenance and supply chains, the company said.
Read more at the WSJ
Lockheed Tripling Patriot Missile Output
The Pentagon announced the first application of a new contract model for weapons system acquisitions, a seven-year agreement that will result in Lockheed Martin tripling annual production of the PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement interceptor. Under the Acquisition Transformation Strategy, introduced in November by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon is assigning “bigger, longer contracts for proven systems so those companies will be confident in investing more to grow the industrial base that supplies our weapons systems more and faster."
The PAC-3 MSE is a “hit-to-kill” anti-ballistic missile for the Patriot air defense system that extends the “range, altitude, and lethality” of the missiles, to neutralize threats from ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and hypersonics with direct kinetic impact rather than blast fragmentation. Lockheed will expand its production and increase output of the PAC-3 MSE missiles from approximately 600 to 2,000 per year, in line with long-term demand from U.S. and allied nations. Last year, Lockheed Martin delivered 620 PAC-3 MSEs, more than 20% above the 2024 total. The PAC-3 MSE is assembled at Lockheed’s Camden, Ark., location, with some components produced at plants in Dallas and Lufkin, Tex.
Read more at American Machinist
BlueScope Steel Rejects $8.8B Takeover Bid From Steel Dynamics, SGH
BlueScope Steel has rejected an $8.8 billion takeover bid from U.S.-based Steel Dynamics and Australia-based energy and media conglomerate SGH, the steel supplier said Wednesday. As part of the proposal released earlier this week, SGH offered to buy BlueScope for $30 per share, then sell the company’s North America operations to Steel Dynamics and retain the remaining international assets.
After swift consideration, BlueScope’s board of directors unanimously refused the unsolicited bid, saying that it “very significantly undervalued” the company. This is the fourth attempt from the U.S. metals recycler and producer since late 2024 to acquire the Australia-based firm’s North America businesses. Previously, the company offered $27.50 and then $29 per share for all of BlueScope as part of a different consortium. In early 2025, it offered to acquire all of BlueScope, retain only its North American operations, then sell the remaining assets valued at $9 per share to the company’s shareholders.
Read more at Manufacturing Dive
AB InBev Buys Back $3 Billion Stake in U.S. Metal Container Facility to Boost Supply Security
Beer giant Anheuser-Busch InBev agreed to repurchase a minority stake in its U.S.-based metal container plants for around $3 billion, taking back its share of the facilities to bolster supply security. The Belgian brewer of Budweiser said Tuesday that it exercised the right to repurchase its 49.9% stake in the plants, which were held by a group of institutional investors led by Apollo Global Management.
AB InBev’s metal container plant operations span seven facilities across six states, including New Windsor, NY, providing supply security for brands and cost efficiencies, the company said. The repurchase of the plants will provide manufacturing jobs in the U.S. and drive economic growth, AB InBev said. The company previously said it is making a push for premium brands in the U.S. to boost efficiency and its underlying earnings in the country.
Read more at Reuters
Wolfspeed Inc. Announced Last Month That Its MOSFET Transistors Would Power Charging Systems For Toyota Motors.
Wolfspeed Inc. a global leader in innovative silicon carbide power solutions, last month announced that its automotive MOSFETs will power onboard charger systems for Toyota. Wolfspeed’s silicon carbide components will be integrated into Toyota’s Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV). This silicon carbide device adoption reflects Toyota’s confidence in Wolfspeed’s ability to meet the automaker’s rigorous standards for quality and long-term reliability.
The widespread adoption of silicon carbide as the industry standard semiconductor for high voltage onboard power systems supports the automotive industry’s transition to clean energy vehicles. While silicon carbide is renowned for powering fast, efficient, and high-power density EV powertrains, its application in onboard automotive auxiliary power systems - such as an onboard charger - also offers numerous benefits that enhance the overall experience of EV ownership throughout the vehicle's lifespan. By providing higher power and more efficient power systems, silicon carbide enables shorter charging times for EV owners and minimizes energy loss across the vehicle. This results in improved driving range and reduced costs associated with each recharge.
Read more at Businesswire
Air Taxi Maker Joby Buys New Ohio Factory, More Than Doubles Manufacturing Footprint As It Vies For FAA Approval
Joby Aviation on Wednesday said it bought a 700,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Dayton, Ohio, as the air taxi maker gears up to meet its production goals for electric vertical takeoff and landing aircrafts, also known as eVTOLs. Joby agreed to purchase the facility from Capstone STS for $61.5 million, according to a filing. The company said the new location, its second in Ohio, more than doubles the size of its manufacturing footprint. The company also reiterated plans announced last year to more than double production capacity to four aircrafts a month by 2027.
Air taxi makers like Joby have scaled manufacturing in recent months, building up production facilities to support the burgeoning market and gain an edge over competitors. These companies are also racing for certification from the Federal Aviation Administration, which they need to start flying their aircrafts commercially. Joby and competitor Archer Aviation have also partnered with Middle East nations to test and deploy their technology.
Read more at CNBC
At CES 2026, AI Leaves the Screen and Enters the Real World
Physical AI—the use of automated machines that lift, drive, carry and operate in the same spaces humans do—is everywhere at CES, and the people making it have seemed eager to puncture its mythology. For years, the public-facing story of robotics has been viral athleticism: robot marathons, kickboxing videos. Now even the people who built those humanoids are treating them as a distraction. “We were doing ‘YouTube-video parkour’ 10 years ago,” said Robert Playter, CEO of robotics company Boston Dynamics, at a CES panel on AI in the physical world. “The hard stuff is useful work.” In other words: less spectacle, more operation in fields, such as mining, construction and logistics, where the work is repetitive and expensive enough to justify the high costs of automation.
By the end of the day, plenty of the AI talk at CES has felt like a familiar story. “I think innovation is happening—it’s just being overhyped,” one conference attendee told me. “In a lot of ways, it echoes the IoT [Internet of Things] wave from 2010.” That is to say, some of the hype is real, and only time will tell what sticks. The question at CES this year is whether physical AI becomes another overused label—or whether it becomes a part of our everyday lives.
Read more at Scientific American
|
