Amazon is doubling the value of credits offered to some startups using its cloud infrastructure in response to increased competition from Microsoft. The increase in credits, which will now be worth $200,000 for startups that have raised a Series A funding round in the past year, up from $100,000, will take effect on July 1. The AWS Activate program will continue to offer $100,000 in credits to early-stage startups. AWS CEO Matt Garman recently met with founders in Silicon Valley, emphasizing the importance of collaborating with startups, particularly those focused on artificial intelligence. The increase in credits comes as Amazon faces challenges from Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, with Microsoft making strides in generative AI and attracting AI workloads to Azure, while Google has its own important language models.
Amazon derives most of its profits from AWS, which launched in 2006, and accounts for a significant portion of the company’s revenue. However, AWS faces stiff competition from Microsoft and Google in the cloud infrastructure market, with Microsoft surpassing AWS in generative AI, according to analysts. In an effort to attract ambitious founders and build partnerships with startups, Amazon and Microsoft are offering significant credits and incentives to startups participating in accelerators and programs focused on AI development. Amazon’s new generative AI accelerator program offers participants access to up to $1 million in cloud credits over 10 weeks.
In addition to increasing credits for startups, Amazon has expanded its team by hiring David Luan, co-founder and CEO of AI startup Adept, along with some of Luan’s colleagues. Amazon is also licensing Adept’s agent technology, which includes next-generation multimodal models and datasets. The company is investing significant resources in cloud infrastructure, with plans to boost investments in Singapore by $9 billion. This move underscores Amazon’s commitment to its cloud business and its efforts to remain competitive in the rapidly evolving cloud market.
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https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/28/amazon-doubling-value-of-credits-for-startups-to-build-on-aws-cloud.html
