Amazon pledges $100 million for generative AI startups
03 Jul 2023
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Amazon Web Services (AWS), e-commerce giant and one of the founders of OpenAI, along with Infosys, Elon Musk and others, in 2015, has now launched a $100 million fund to bolster startups focusing on generative AI.
The programme, known as the AWS Generative AI Innovation Center, is designed to connect AWS-affiliated data scientists, strategists, engineers, and solutions architects with customers and partners. The aim, according to Amazon, is to "accelerate enterprise innovation and success with generative AI.”
Generative A, including tools like ChatGPT or Midjourney, is a subset of artificial intelligence which, instead of learning to classify data or predict outcomes, is capable of generating new content. It creates anything from text and images to music, based on learned patterns. This cutting-edge AI can augment human productivity and creativity by churning out designs, ideas, and solutions that were previously inconceivable.
Amazon Web Services said it is launching a 10-week AWS Generative AI Accelerator to speed up its AI efforts. The programme offers access to AI resources, mentorship, and $300,000 in AWS credits. With AI-powered digital assistants, including Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Google’s Assistant, the Amazon initiative seems superfluous.
Generative AI has the potential to add a staggering $4.4 trillion to the global economy annually, according to a recent McKinsey report. The global AI industry is estimated to touch a high of $15.7 trillion by 2030.
The decision to launch the fund follows an AWS 10-week programme for generative AI startups and the launch of Bedrock, a platform for building generative AI-powered apps. In collaboration with Nvidia, AWS aims to construct "next-generation" infrastructure for training AI models, supplementing its in-house Trainium hardware.
