Amazonof AWS The re:Invent developer conference kicked off this week.A series of blockbuster announcements show Amazon is trying to catch up with the leader in AI and its main competitor Microsoft.
As an annual showcase for Amazon's vital Amazon Web Services (AWS) business, this year's conference focused on generative AI in an effort to counter the early dominance of Microsoft and Google in the market.
Major announcements at the show included Amazon's new Q Chatbot,Upgraded AI chip, andDeepening cooperation with chip manufacturing giant NvidiaThese moves will help Amazon and its AWS business catch up with the industryLeaders.
“Our discussions indicate that AWS has made solid progress in building out its generative AI strategy and capabilities, with a focus on providing a broad selection of customizable FMs, as well as a secure environment,” JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth wrote in a research note.
He added: “We are confident that AWS is beginning to close early gaps in generative AI, and that our silicon development, breadth of large language models, and significant customer data moving to the AWS cloud will become key differentiators over time.”
But Amazon's move doesn't mean it's on the same level as Microsoft or Google, at least not yet.
Amazon's Q is coming
The most eye-catching news at re:Invent was Amazon's Q chatbotQ is designed to serve corporate clients rather than the general public, and is designed as a general assistant that helps users perform tasks such as drafting emails, coming up with business ideas, summarizing reports and planning seminars..
Amazon claims that Q is a key differentiator that has been trained on 17 years of AWS data and is currently available in preview. In one example, Amazon explains that you can use Q to turn information from a corporate blog into social media posts, including with hashtags. In another example, the company explains that you can use Q to create useful apps for workers.
The service is similar to what Microsoft and Google currently offer on their generative AI platforms. Microsoft’s Copilot and Azure AI studio help workers summarize content and compose emails, as well as create custom AI co-pilots, which are essentially AI-powered apps.
Meanwhile, Google’s Duet for Workspaces acts as a generative AI assistant for brainstorming and summarizing content, while its Vertex AI service helps enterprise customers build generative AI apps.
The point here is that Amazon's Q puts the company on a path to compete more directly with Microsoft and Google, which are second and third in the cloud market behind Amazon, respectively.
Amazon's chip move
In addition to Q, Amazon also released itsup to dateof AI chip: Trainium2. This chip is designed to train AI models. Amazon said that the Trainium2 chip will provide faster training thanFirstTrainium is four times faster and twice as energy efficient.
Notably, Anthropic, the AI developer behind the Claude chatbot, said it will develop future foundational models on Amazon’s Trainium2 chip. In September, Amazon announced it would invest up to $4 billion in the startup.
Amazon has been developing and using its own AI chips for the past few years, giving it a head start on Microsoft, which only recently announced it was working on its own custom AI chips. In addition, even as Amazon increases its investments in its own Silicon Valley, it is deepening its ties with AI chips.LeadersNvidia relationship.
During re:Invest,Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang took the stage to announce Amazon's commitment to Nvidia chips and announced that the company would receive Nvidiaup to dateHardware access permissions.
Amazon’s push into generative AI comes as the company continues to grapple with slowing AWS revenue growth, which has raised alarms on Wall Street. In the third quarter, the company reported $23.06 billion in AWS net sales. Analysts expected $23.13 billion.
Microsoft and Google shine as the leaders in AI in 2023, adding some momentum to their cloud businesses. But with Amazonup to dateThe company is preparing to launchStrongcompete.