June 17 : Allbirds changed its name to Smartbird on Wednesday and appointed former Amazon executive Nadia Carlsten as CEO, cementing the former footwear maker's pivot to an AI infrastructure firm and sending its shares up more than 30 per cent. The company had said in April it was shifting its focus to offer

Allbirds drops shoes to become Smartbird, an AI infrastructure startup. CEO Nadia Carlsten, fresh off building an NVIDIA-powered supercomputer, targets the mid-market.

The former sneaker company also said it hired a new CEO in its continued hard pivot into becoming an AI infrastructure provider.