Guest: Mark Becker of G10 Fulfillment on safe handling and shipping of lithium-ion batteries; Workers experience AI anxiety; The logistics behind hyperscaling data centers.

Our guest on this week's episode is Mark Becker, CEO of G10 Fulfillment. We have all heard the stories about the fire risks of lithium-ion batteries – for instance, you can’t put them in your checked luggage on a flight or use portable power-bank batteries inside an airplane cabin. Of course, larger industrial batteries used in forklifts and mobile robotic systems are built to much better specifications than many consumer batteries, but how can we assure they are safe? Ben Ames talks with this week’s guest about best practices for shipping, storing, and fulfillment of lithium-ion batteries.

The modern workplace is changing amid widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and ongoing economic uncertainty—issues we’ve been talking about quite frequently on the podcast. New information on this topic from staffing and recruitment agency Randstad USA emphasizes the “AI anxiety” piece and is in line with other recent research that raises some pretty big questions about where we’re headed. Victoria Kickham shares the details.

There is a lot of logistics effort  required to build the physical machinery that makes AI work. We’re talking about buildings and pipes and wires and chips and servers. The companies that build these data centers — called hyperscalers — are spending a ton of money in a race for market share. The latest Goldman Sachs report upgraded the estimate for 2026 spending on those projects from $465 billion $527 billion. This week DHL announced a “significant expansion” of its North America data center logistics (DCL) infrastructure with 10 dedicated warehouse sites totaling more than seven million square feet of capacity set to go live in 2026.  Ben Ames has this report.

Supply Chain Xchange  also offers a podcast series called Supply Chain in the Fast Lane.  It is co-produced with the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals. Go to your favorite podcast platform to subscribe and to listen to past and future episodes. The podcast is also available at www.thescxchange.com.

Articles and resources mentioned in this episode:

G10 FulfillmentAutomation/AI reshape the workforceDHL expands white glove logistics for construction of AI data centersGoldman Sachs: Why AI companies may invest more than $500 billion in 2026Visit DC VelocityVisit Supply Chain XchangeListen to CSCMP and Supply Chain Xchange's Supply Chain in the Fast Lane podcastSend feedback about this podcast to podcast@agilebme.com

This podcast episode is sponsored by: Storage Solutions

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