Amazon(US:AMZN) CNBCยท2025-05-19 05:14Core Viewpoint - The fashion industry faces significant waste and inefficiency issues, and technology like Smartex's AI-driven defect detection can help reduce waste and improve production efficiency [4][6][7]. Industry Overview - The fashion industry is responsible for a substantial amount of waste, with approximately one truckload of clothes discarded every second [4]. - It is also one of the largest polluters globally, with about 20% of water pollution attributed to textile dyeing and finishing processes [6]. Company Overview: Smartex - Smartex, co-founded by Gilberto Loureiro, utilizes cameras and AI to identify defects in textiles during production, preventing 1 million kilograms of fabric waste over the past three years [3]. - The company has raised over $40 million in funding, with notable investments from H&M Group and Tony Fadell, indicating strong investor interest in its technology [7]. - Smartex aims to become an "operating system" for factories, providing brands with critical information about production processes and resource usage [13]. Investment and Financial Aspects - The average payback period for investments in Smartex is between nine to eighteen months, with factory owners typically spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on the technology [12]. - Smartex's technology can increase garment production efficiency by 0.37% per kilogram of finished fabric, which is significant given the scale of raw materials used by major fashion brands like Inditex [4][7]. Technological Impact - The fashion industry has been slow to adopt digitalization, presenting a gap for technological advancements that can enhance efficiency and reduce environmental impact [5][6]. - Smartex's use of AWS technology for machine learning model training highlights the integration of advanced computing in improving textile production processes [10].