Speculation about where Amazon plans to build its second headquarters reached another level as an artificial intelligence system selected Boston as the home for the new location, according to CNN Money.
Boston was among 19 other cities where the retail giant will bring an estimated 50,000 jobs and $5 billion in investment, according to the USA Today,
The Wells Fargo AI system, called Aiera, picked Boston because of several factors, including “media sentiment, macro analysis and how Amazon stock price reacted to news coverage, to determine which locations are favorited,” CNN reported Wednesday.
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The robot found Apple’s stock jumped 0.78 percent when Boston was mentioned as a possible choice.
According to CNN, the research note that outlined the findings said that “it is fair to characterize (Boston) as what the broader public and the market believes will happen when Amazon announces their decision later this year.”
The robot selected Chicago, Atlanta, New York City and Toronto as other possible sites.
A gambling site Paddy Power previously gave Boston 3-1 odds of winning the Amazon sweepstakes, while also giving 7-2 odds to both Atlanta and Austin.
However, Washington, D.C., has become a recent favorite in the hunt to receive the new headquarters location. Business Insider reported that Washington would be a good spot because Amazon has recently increased lobbying efforts in the nation’s capital city and the city is also home to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post.
Experts have also nodded to Atlanta as a possible spot because it’s near the East Coast and has a thriving student pipeline with a transportation hub, according to CNBC. A city in Georgia even said it would name itself after Amazon if the company wanted to add its headquarters to the state.
Meanwhile, internet theories cooked up the idea that Amazon’s HQ2 would land in Austin, Texas, since the city was mentioned during the company’s Super Bowl Sunday commercial.
And a New York Times report named Denver as the top choice thanks to the city’s affordability and burgeoning tech sector.
