Dive Brief:
- Amazon Web Services will select 10 tech startups to embark on a generative AI accelerator, the company announced Tuesday. The 10-week program will provide participating startups with access to AI models and tools, customized go-to-market strategies and ML stack optimization.
- As part of the program, selected startups will receive business and technical mentors, as well as up to $300,000 in AWS credits to build products and services on the cloud giant’s tech stack.
- Applications for the AWS Generative AI Accelerator program are open through April 17, and the program will run from May 24 to July 27 of this year.
Dive Insight:
Large tech companies are looking to advance their generative AI capabilities through partnering, funding or providing training for startups with the technology they want.
At the end of February, AWS followed in Google and Microsoft’s steps by partnering with a generative AI startup. The partnership with Hugging Face allows the startup to use AWS to build its products while AWS customers can customize and fine-tune the technology to fit business needs.
AWS also announced a partnership with NVIDIA to build out scalable, on-demand AI infrastructure optimized for training complex LLMs and developing generative AI applications, the company said in March.
Accelerator programs provide startups with resources and the ability to build on larger tech companies’ tech stack.
Google has an accelerator program targeted toward specific regions, interest areas such as cloud or climate change and underrepresented groups in the tech industry. While each program’s requirements differ based on specific goals, teams that are chosen typically are “deeply technical, preferably leveraging technologies like ML and AI,” Google said in a blog post.
Google and Amazon aren’t alone. In March, Salesforce Ventures, the software company’s investment arm, launched a $250 million generative AI fund, investing in four startups initially, including Anthropic and Cohere.
“We’re excited to partner with Salesforce to bring our trustworthy, conversational AI assistant Claude to more businesses in a responsible and ethical way,” Anthropic President Daniela Amodei said in a statement. “Anthropic and Salesforce share a vision for creating innovative technology that is rooted in safety, and we’re looking forward to introducing more useful AI services into the world.”
Anthropic partnered with Google Cloud in February to use Google Cloud’s infrastructure and allow Google access to its AI capabilities, in a similar fashion to Microsoft and OpenAI’s deal. Google Cloud also cemented a multiyear technology partnership with Cohere in 2021 to power its platform with Google Cloud’s AI and ML infrastructure.
