Amazon Says It'll Spend $230 Million On Generative AI Startups

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Amazon says that it will commit up to $230 million to startups building generative AI-powered applications. The investment, roughly $80 million of which will fund Amazon's second AWS Generative AI Accelerator program, aims to position AWS as an attractive cloud infrastructure choice for startups developing generative AI models to power their products, apps and services. Much of the new tranche -- including the entire portion set aside for the accelerator program -- comes in the form of compute credits for AWS infrastructure, meaning that it can't be transferred to other cloud service providers like Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure.

To sweeten the pot, Amazon is pledging that startups in this year's Generative AI Accelerator cohort will gain access to experts and tech from Nvidia, the program's presenting partner. They will also be invited to join the Nvidia Inception program, which provides companies opportunities to connect with potential investors and additional consulting resources. The Generative AI Accelerator program has also grown substantially. Last year's cohort, which had 21 startups, received only up to $300,000 in AWS compute credits, amounting to around a combined $6.3 million investment. "With this new effort, we will help startups launch and scale world-class businesses, providing the building blocks they need to unleash new AI applications that will impact all facets of how the world learns, connects, and does business," Matt Wood, VP of AI products at AWS, said in a statement. Further reading: How Amazon Blew Alexa's Shot To Dominate AI

Hey Amazon

[The Cat]

You have a database that tells you exactly who wants to buy my books. You could make me a NY Times bestseller and pocket millions with one email. Wouldn't cost a dime.

Pro tip: There are midlist romance authors with ten times my readership.

Been waiting 12 years for you to send that email, but for some reason you never do.

Funny.

Collecting on the backend

[NomDeAlias]

This makes a ton of sense since the biggest costs with AI startups is generally the hardware to train with. They'll likely require any startup they invest in to rent their GPUs from Amazon effectively cycling a significant portion of the investment back to themselves while keeping the equity it paid for.

Re: Collecting on the backend

[sixminuteabs]

Itâ(TM)s going to require a hell of a lot more than $230M to have real impact

Re:

[timeOday]

They'll likely require any startup they invest in to rent their GPUs from Amazon

Yes, because the investment comes in the form of compute credits for AWS infrastructure.

So, the cost to Amazon is probably somewhat less than the $230M estimated value. On the other hand, GPU compute and electricity are truly valuable quantities. Amazon doesn't get them for free.

Re:

[Tony Isaac]

That's kind of how investing works. It's not charity, investors always want a payoff. Always.

Re:

[kackle]

Ah, my good friend Tony... They archived our original discussion, so we can't post there anymore. I'll have to finish up by being off-topic here...

Before the recent Chicago influx, I have thought for decades that the loose way illegal immigration was handled was THE biggest problem inside of our country, affecting so many other things. I felt sorry for Texas when watching those volunteers of the "Minuteman Project" on TV hopelessly try to help at their border.

This is my point. People are coming already, legally or not, so why would you think that giving them the option to legally register to work and pay taxes, would somehow make unemployment spike? I don't get it.

I don't think they will all want/be physic

Here, take our money!

[thesjaakspoiler]

That will teach our competitors a lesson!

The Plan

[HoleShot]

All startups will be assimilated. Resistance is Futile.

Amount of content

[El_Muerte_TDS]

Generative Als mostly solve the problem for quantity of content. It is not the lack of content which is a problem, it is a bit more the quality of content, which the Als do not fix, they generally make it worse.

Generative AI, aka "throwing shit at a wall."

[Eunomion]

Literally the opposite of intelligence.