Amazon.com Inc is joining Microsoft Corp and Google in the generative artificial intelligence (AI) race, announcing technology aimed at its cloud customers as well as a marketplace for AI tools from other companies.
The e-commerce giant’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) unit on Thursday announced two of its own large-language models, one designed to generate text and another that could help power Web search personalization, among other things.
Amazon announced no plans to release a chatbot like the ones Microsoft and Google have debuted.
Photo: Reuters
Amazon’s large-language models, called Titan, were trained on vast amounts of text to summarize content, write a draft of a blog post or engage in open-ended question-and-answer sessions.
They are to be made available on an AWS service, called Bedrock, where developers can tap into models built by other companies plugging away at generative AI, including AI21 Labs, Anthropic and Stability AI.
In an interview with Bloomberg Television, AWS chief executive officer Adam Selipsky said that customers asked: “‘What can you do to help us with generative AI?’”
While conceding that the technology is at an early stage, he said the company’s in-house chips mean Amazon can provide cost-effective solutions and performance.
Generative AI, software that can create text, images or video based on prompts from a user, has captured the imagination of Silicon Valley, setting off a fierce competition to capitalize on the technology.
Amazon shares rose 4.6 percent to US$102.31 at 3:42pm in New York.
Microsoft, through a partnership with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, has integrated generative AI technology into its Bing Internet search service and plans to deploy those tools across the software maker’s products.
Alphabet Inc’s Google is racing to make similar moves.
Meta Platforms Inc has released its own large-language model and said similar work would expand across the company.
AWS, which sells on-demand computing power and software tools — including a suite of machine-learning applications — had previously partnered with AI companies including Hugging Face Inc and Stability AI, which builds the image generator Stable Diffusion.
However, AWS had not previously revealed plans to release a homegrown large-language model.
AWS vice president of databases, machine learning and analytics Swami Sivasubramanian said that Amazon had long been working on large-language models.
They are already used to help shoppers find products on Amazon’s retail Web site and to power elements of the Alexa voice assistant, among other applications.
“Amazon has been investing in this space for quite a while,” Sivasubramanian said in an interview.
Sivasubramanian said that the company had not settled on pricing to access the tools, but said that homegrown chips built by AWS, including Inferentia2 and Trainium, could help customers keep costs low as they do their own machine-learning work.
The Seattle-based company on Thursday also said that CodeWhisperer, which uses predictive tools to proactively suggest code as developers type it, would be free for individual developers.
“I don’t believe there is going to be one model that will rule the world,” Sivasubramanian said.
STRONG INTEREST: Analysts have pointed to optimism in TSMC’s growth prospects in the artificial intelligence era as the cause of the rising number of shareholders The number of people holding shares of chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) hit a new high last week despite a decline in its stock price, the Taiwan Depository and Clearing Corp (TDCC, 台灣集保) said. The number of TSMC shareholders rose to 2.46 million as of Friday, up 75,536 from a week earlier, TDCC data showed. The stock price fell 1.34 percent during the same week to close at NT$1,840 (US$57.55). The decline in TSMC’s share price resulted from volatility in global tech stocks, driven by rising international crude oil prices as the war against Iran continues. Dealers said
Taiwan’s natural gas supply remains stable through the end of May, despite rising concerns about potential disruptions to Qatari liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies due to escalating conflicts in the Middle East, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. The ministry in a statement said that Taiwan has completed preparations for natural gas supply and shipping schedules through the end of May. It has also made plans to increase natural gas imports from regions outside the Middle East in June to ensure a stable supply, it added. Taiwan sources natural gas from 14 countries and is not solely dependent on the Middle East,
China is clamping down on fertilizer exports to protect its domestic market, industry sources said, putting an additional strain on global markets that were already grappling with shortages caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran. China is among the largest fertilizer exporters — shipping more than US$13 billion of it last year — and it has a history of controlling exports to keep prices low for farmers. Shipments through the war-blocked Strait of Hormuz account for about one-third of the sea-borne supply. This month, Beijing banned exports of nitrogen-potassium fertilizer blends and certain phosphate varieties, sources said. The ban, which has not
Grab Holdings Ltd agreed to buy Delivery Hero SE’s Foodpanda operations in Taiwan for US$600 million, a deal that marks its first foray outside of its Southeast Asian base. The cash acquisition will allow Grab to expand into 21 cities across Taiwan, the Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery company said in a statement yesterday. Grab expects the transaction to be completed in the second half, subject to regulatory approvals. The purchase will give Grab a presence on the island of about 23 million people, helping it to expand beyond its intensely competitive home market. Grab has seen growth slow dramatically as it takes
RSS