Amazon pledges $230 million to support artificial intelligence companies

Cloud computing giant Amazon Web Services (AWS) has pledged $230 million to accelerate the development of generative artificial intelligence applications by startups around the world.

The initiative will provide early-stage companies with AWS cloud computing credits, as well as mentoring and education capabilities to advance their use of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, the company said.

Amazon’s move comes at a time when major technology companies are under increasing scrutiny from antitrust regulators to determine whether they are stifling competition in the emerging artificial intelligence market.

The credits provided will give startups participating in the program access to AWS’s custom compute, storage, database, and AI chips offerings.

Training generative AI models, including ChatGPT, requires a huge amount of computing power, which quickly depletes startups’ cash reserves.