All the major tech companies are making their presence known in the field of artificial intelligence, with one exception: Amazon. The company has been keeping a low profile and hasn’t announced any significant developments in AI so far. In fact, current indications suggest that it won’t do so until 2025. Interestingly, Amazon is investing heavily in the sector. However, the spending has yet to result in a visible product.
A recent investment. On Friday, Amazon announced a $4 billion investment in Anthropic, a rival of OpenAI and creator of the Claude chatbot. This amount matches Amazon’s previous investment in the same company in March 2024, clearly solidifying Amazon’s influence as a major player in the field.
A massive startup. In the last couple of months, OpenAI and xAI have secured substantial funding, significantly boosting their market valuations. Following speculation about a potential investment round for Anthropic, Amazon’s investment helps it secure its status as a prominent entity in the sector. According to Crunchbase, Anthropic has raised a total of $13.7 billion, with $8 billion of that investment coming from Amazon.
Training on AWS. As part of their agreement, Anthropic will mainly train its generative AI models using the Amazon Web Services platform. This strategy mirrors that of the Microsoft/OpenAI partnership, which primarily relies on Microsoft Azure services rather than those from competitors.
Minimizing the use of Nvidia chips. Anthropic will focus on utilizing Amazon’s existing Trainium2 and Inferentia chips, designed specifically for running and servicing AI models rather than training them. Previously, Anthropic relied heavily on Nvidia for model training. However, with this new agreement, the company is committing to Amazon’s solutions for both training and inference processes.
The chips of the future. Anthropic will collaborate with Amazon to develop specialized AI chips in the future. Engineers at Anthropic will work alongside Annapurna Labs, the division of Amazon responsible for these advancements. The aim is to create future generations of the Trainium accelerator, specifically aimed at enhancing the power and efficiency of AI model training.
Will users chat more with the hypothetical new version of Alexa? | Image: Jonathan Borba
What’s going on with Amazon’s AI? Despite Amazon’s significant investment in Anthropic, the company hasn’t launched a widely visible product yet. In contrast, Microsoft’s multi-billion dollar investment in OpenAI has quickly yielded results, with Microsoft introducing its Copilot family of solutions featuring ChatGPT across its entire product range. However, Amazon doesn’t currently offer a consumer chatbot or generative AI services. Strangely enough, it has created some enterprise-focused projects, like Amazon Q, an AI chatbot for businesses.
An AI-loaded Alexa. Amazon’s potential flagship project in the AI space seems to be a major relaunch of Alexa. The voice assistant, typically integrated with Amazon Echo devices, could be upgraded to a version called “Remarkable Alexa,” which would significantly enhance its conversational capabilities. Like ChatGPT Plus, this version might be a paid service, but the details are still unclear. There’s also speculation that Anthropic’s Claude chatbot could power it.
Metis and Olympus. Additionally, Amazon is developing its own LLM called Olympus, which aims to compete with models like GPT-4, Gemini, and Claude 3.5 Sonnet. Accessing this technology may not only enhance Alexa but also provide users with a browser-based service called Metis, which is being positioned as Amazon’s answer to ChatGPT.
All developments remain uncertain. There are questions about Amazon’s standing in the AI landscape, especially since the company appears to have missed out on the generative AI trend so far. However, it could simply be biding its time to launch a well-refined product. Similarly, Apple has also been slow to introduce its AI features with Apple Intelligence, which has been disappointing for many. We can only wait to see whether Amazon faces a similar fate.
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