Amazon aims to compete with OpenAI and Anthropic on frontier AI models in the coming year, the company's AI chief told CNBC on Wednesday. Peter DeSantis, senior vice president heading Amazon's semiconductor, AI and quantum efforts, acknowledged the company's models have not been at the frontier for the most demanding workloads. Amazon has pursued a dual AI strategy: Bedrock, a marketplace for third-party models accessible to cloud customers, and its own Nova2 model released in December.
DeSantis Acknowledges Amazon Models Lag Behind Frontier Labs
"I think it's a fair narrative that our models haven't been at the very frontier for the very largest, most demanding workloads," DeSantis told CNBC. The "frontier" refers to the most advanced AI models. DeSantis said Amazon has taken a deliberate approach to establish foundations in data, architecture, and infrastructure. "We're on a path that we want to be on," he said.
Nova2 Attracts 50,000 Customers Since December Release
Amazon released Nova2 in December as its latest AI model to compete with OpenAI and Anthropic. "We've got about 50,000 customers for Nova2, so we're pretty excited about it," DeSantis said. He stated the company's aspiration is to have a model people consider among the most capable intelligent models available. "I'm not sure we're there yet with Nova2, but that's our aspiration," DeSantis said.
Amazon Develops Trainium and Graviton Chips for AI Infrastructure
Amazon's AI strategy includes custom semiconductors under the Trainium and Graviton brands. The company designs chips to optimize performance for its AI models. DeSantis compared Amazon's chip development capabilities to Nvidia. "We're one of a very few players who have the ability to design a chip, design the physical attributes of that chip, and then do the production of that chip," DeSantis said. Amazon currently rents compute capacity through Amazon Web Services, with Anthropic among its largest customers.
Jassy Signals Potential Third-Party Sales of Trainium Chips
CEO Andy Jassy said in April the company could consider selling racks of Trainium chips to third parties. DeSantis said no timeline exists for external chip sales. "I think that we're going to see an explosion in innovations for how people want to deploy AI infrastructure, and we want to be a part of that," DeSantis said. He left open the possibility of selling Graviton chips to third parties. "Graviton is at the centre of our strategy with chips, and it will continue to be. So, today we're not thinking about deploying that outside of AWS, but who knows," DeSantis said.
FAQ
What did Amazon's AI chief say about competing with OpenAI and Anthropic?
Peter DeSantis told CNBC on Wednesday that Amazon aims to compete with OpenAI and Anthropic on frontier AI models in the coming year. He acknowledged Amazon's models have not been at the frontier for the most demanding workloads but said the company has taken a deliberate approach to establish foundations in data, architecture, and infrastructure.
How many customers does Amazon's Nova2 AI model have?
Amazon's Nova2 model, released in December, has approximately 50,000 customers according to Peter DeSantis. He stated the company's aspiration is to have a model considered among the most capable intelligent models available, though he noted Amazon is not yet at that level with Nova2.
