Boston will win Amazon’s second headquarters, according to an artificial intelligence system developed by Wells Fargo.
The bank’s stock-picking robot, called Aiera, thinks the city is the likely choice to host HQ2.
The $5 billion facility will create as many as 50,000 jobs and will be a full equal to the company’s existing Seattle headquarters. In January, Amazon released a short list of the 20 finalists still in the running for the site.
Aiera uses deep learning technology to generate predictions. In this case, it looked at a variety of factors, such as media sentiment, macro analysis and how Amazon stock price reacted to news coverage, to determine which locations are favorited, Wells Fargo analysts said in a research note.
For example, Amazon’s stock price moved up an average 0.78% after Boston was mentioned 190 times by publications discussing HQ2.
The note said that based on all of its measures “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.”
Behind Boston, Aiera selected the following cities in order: Chicago, Atlanta, New York City and Toronto.
While the analysts said they would have guessed that Washington DC would be higher on the list, Aiera placed the city in seventh behind Austin in sixth. Because three of the top 20 finalists are in the Washington DC metro area, the region is considered by some to be a frontrunner.
However, Aiera isn’t the only one pointing to Boston. Earlier this year, Irish gambling site Paddy Power gave the city 3-to-1 odds of winning the second headquarters. Other favorites include Austin and Atlanta, which both had odds of 7-to-2.
Other firms are releasing their own predictions. Washington DC scored the highest on Hamilton Place Strategies recent analysis, while Atlanta was number one on Sperling’s BestPlaces ranking.
Amazon is currently in the process of meeting with each of the 20 finalists on the list. It has already visited cities like DC and Denver. The company is expected to make a decision this year.
