Amazon Web Services strengthens its bet on the local cloud and local chips

Amazon.com Inc.’s cloud computing division is adding products that help customers maintain local control over their data, a gamble that could help it fend off rivals Microsoft Corp. and Google of Alphabet Inc.

Amazon Web Services has a big lead in selling on-demand software services, a business based on the economies of scale provided by large farms of servers in data centers. Last year, the company has gone small, for the first time selling services for customer data centers. This decision recognized customer demand for faster processing and the need to meet regulatory requirements by storing information within their own walls.

AWS stepped up that bet on Tuesday, launching its annual customer conference with two new variants of Outposts, the server rack product it started selling a year ago. While previous versions required customers to purchase a complete server rack the size of a filing cabinet, newer versions ship as small as a single 1 3/4 inch tall unit that customers can plug in. in their own data center facility. Amazon has also announced versions of its software for containers, a popular way to run applications and related software reliably.

The company also presented plans to expand local areas, or cloud servers installed in major cities, closer to some customers than Amazon’s sometimes remote server farms in places like Ohio, Oregon and the United States. Virginia. Launched last year in Los Angeles, new areas were made available to customers on Tuesday in Boston, Houston and Miami. A dozen more will go live next year, AWS said in a statement.

To remind major chipmakers that Amazon is developing cheaper semiconductors, the company unveiled new variants of on-demand processing power. Trainium, a new chip that trains algorithms to detect patterns in data, will be available next year. AWS also said it would offer more services based on its own Graviton chips that optimize data speed – which could cost customers 40% less than if they used processors from Intel Corp. or Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

Amazon has also introduced graphics technology using AMD chips that it says “will offer the best price performance in the industry.” Nvidia Corp. dominates the market for graphics chips used in data centers.

In comments that kicked off the re: Invent customer conference, broadcast live by the company, Andy Jassy, CEO of AWS, said the company realized a few years ago that it would have to develop its own chips if Amazon wanted to continue cutting costs for customers. But he stressed that “we have a deep relationship with Intel and AMD, and we will for the foreseeable future.”

The company also announced new IT services powered by Intel on Tuesday.