Sylvia Duruson
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced a substantial $230 million commitment to support startups worldwide in developing generative AI applications. This initiative aims to provide early-stage companies with AWS credits, mentorship, and educational resources to advance their use of AI and machine learning technologies.
A significant portion of this investment will fund the second cohort of the AWS Generative AI Accelerator. This program offers hands-on expertise and up to $1 million in credits to each of the top 80 early-stage startups using generative AI to tackle complex challenges. Interested startups can submit their applications until July 19.
Matt Wood, vice president of Artificial Intelligence Products at AWS, emphasized the company’s long-standing support for startups. He noted that 96% of all AI/ML unicorns currently run on AWS, highlighting the platform’s role in fostering innovation in the field.
The AWS credits provided through this initiative can be used to access various AWS technologies, including compute, storage, and database services. Startups can also utilize AWS Trainium and Inferentia2, energy-efficient AI chips designed for high performance at lower costs. Additionally, the credits cover access to Amazon SageMaker for building and training models, as well as Amazon Bedrock for developing generative AI applications.
The AWS Generative AI Accelerator focuses on startups working in diverse sectors such as financial services, healthcare, media and entertainment, business, and climate change. Participants will benefit from a 10-week program featuring sessions on ML performance enhancement, stack optimization, and go-to-market strategies. The program matches startups with both business and technical mentors based on their industry vertical.
NVIDIA, the presenting partner for the accelerator, will provide additional support through access to industry experts, technology, and technical sessions. Participating startups will also be invited to join the NVIDIA Inception program, designed to nurture cutting-edge startups.
The selection of startups for the second cohort will be announced on September 10, with the program kicking off on October 1 at Amazon’s Seattle campus. All 80 participating startups will have the opportunity to showcase their solutions to potential investors, customers, partners, and AWS leaders at re:Invent 2024 in Las Vegas.
Jachin Bhasme, co-founder and COO of Leonardo.AI, a participant in the first cohort, shared his positive experience with the accelerator. He noted that AWS’s infrastructure helped reduce inferencing costs by 60% and accelerate language model inference speeds by up to 35%. Bhasme also highlighted the valuable business and technical mentorship received during the program.
Nima Alidoust, CEO and co-founder of Vevo Therapeutics, another participant, praised AWS’s combination of technology, partner network, and potential customers in the life sciences space. He emphasized how the accelerator program provided valuable opportunities to leverage AWS’s infrastructure and expertise in scaling model training and development.
This initiative demonstrates AWS’s commitment to fostering innovation in the generative AI space and supporting startups in their journey to build, launch, and scale their businesses. As the field of AI continues to evolve rapidly, programs like the AWS Generative AI Accelerator play a crucial role in nurturing the next generation of groundbreaking technologies and applications.
