HP to sack up to 6000 staff under AI adoption plan, fresh round of cost-cutting (www.theregister.com)

HP Inc. will cut 4,000–6,000 jobs — roughly 10% of its workforce — as part of a new, CEO‑led cost‑cutting program that pivots to broad AI adoption. Announced with Q4 results, the plan follows a prior “future‑ready” program that beat its $1.4B savings target and now aims to drive about $1B of gross run‑rate savings over three years by automating and reworking product development, customer service/support and operational processes. HP says internal use of “AI PCs” running curated applications already lifted productivity by about 16%, signalling the company intends to replace a significant portion of tasks with AI-enabled workflows. For the AI/ML community this is another major corporate signal that practical automation deployments are shifting from pilots to workforce impact. HP’s approach emphasizes curated AI apps and end‑to‑end process enablement rather than pure research — useful context for vendors and systems integrators. The company also warned of a sharp rise in memory costs (now ~15–18% of a typical PC’s bill of materials), which could force reduced RAM configurations, use of lower‑cost parts, supplier qualification, portfolio redesign and potential price increases that would squeeze PC margins in H2. Context: Q4 personal systems revenue was $10.8B (+8% YoY), printing revenue fell 4%, and full‑year revenue was $55.3B (+4.2%).