Amazon To Invest In Low-Cost Generative AI Cloud Computing

On Tuesday, an executive stated that Amazon’s cloud division is striving to differentiate itself from competitors who are believed to have an advantage in artificial intelligence by focusing on price competition.

The AI models behind a viral chatbot like ChatGPT require enormous computing power to train and operate, costs that Amazon Web Services (AWS) is good at reducing, said Dilip Kumar, vice president overseeing its applications group.

A possible plus is that a company like Google has its own chips for artificial intelligence.

“These models are expensive,” Kumar told the Reuters MOMENTUM conference in Austin. “We take a lot of responsibility for that unspecified heavy lifting so we can lower costs for our customers.”

The world’s largest cloud service provider in terms of turnover is facing a big challenge. Rivals Microsoft and Google have marketed a higher profile, proprietary technology, captivating mindshare and other business in the industry’s potentially lucrative artificial intelligence race.

Amazon’s competition has also focused on lowering costs, marketing free previews of such technology, though final pricing remained unclear.

In terms of quality, Kumar did not answer how Amazon’s own AI model family known as Titan stacks up against more famous counterparts, such as Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s GPT series or Google’s PaLM.

Instead, he pointed to other characteristics of Amazon, such as “our special way of dealing with privacy, our special way of dealing with accuracy,” at a time when there is much concern about what happens to confidential data given to artificial intelligence and the technology’s propensity to produce incorrect information. information.

Plus, as the biggest player in the cloud industry, “more companies of all sizes already have (their) data on AWS,” he said, making it a reason to use its AI.

Like Google, Amazon markets technology from other notable startups to give customers more choice.

AI promises aside, Amazon has faced uncertain economic conditions and slowing cloud revenue growth for the foreseeable future. Asked how Amazon’s budget planning for 2024 is progressing, Kumar said of the company in general: “We’re in a cycle where spending is tight.”