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Days after Amazon broke ground on a massive east-end Ottawa warehouse, it has emerged the company will close a software design office it’s had in the nation’s capital for the better part of two years, affecting about 30 high-paid jobs.

The company quietly opened the office in August 2016 in a bid to better its Alexa voice-activated products. Ottawa has a long history in big-data analytics, dating back to Cognos, which was once an industry-leading giant.

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Staff at the facility, which was located at 555 Legget Dr. near the Brookstreet Hotel, were brought in to help fine-tune Alexa’s capabilities, especially finding pertinent information for users.

Amazon is in a race with Google Inc. and Apple Inc., which each have their own voice-activated helpers, Google Assistant and Siri, respectively.

Amazon said the move to close the Ottawa office is part of the company’s ongoing efforts to streamline efficiencies.