Amazon Web Services will now allow its free credits program for startups to include the use of leading AI models from other vendors, including Meta, Mistral AI and Cohere, in addition to its own Bedrock AI platform, it said Tuesday the company to Reuters.
The move could attract more AI startup customers to the AWS platform and potentially minimize the costs those startups incur using AI. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in January that developing the company’s most advanced AI model required $100 million.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) CEO Adam Selipsky speaks with Anthropic CEO and co-founder Dario Amodei in November 2023. Photo by Noah Berger/Getty Images for Amazon Web Services
According to The Information, OpenAI’s rival Anthropic had to spend half of the revenue it generated in January paying cloud providers such as Google and Amazon.
Related: Amazon invests $4 billion in competitor ChatGPT, making a bold move in the AI arms race
Amazon closed its $4 billion investment in Anthropic last week and covers Anthropic’s AI models with its free credit program. Anthropic’s latest AI model appeared to exhibit “meta-awareness” in internal tests.
Amazon said it has offered startups more than $6 billion in credit over the past 10 years. According to Reuters, the company plans to offer half a million dollars in credit to startups in Y Combinator’s latest January batch.
Amazon isn’t the first company to offer free cloud credits for startups. Google offers up to $350,000 in credits and IBM offers credits in a trial period.
Related: An OpenAI rival has developed a model that appears to have “metacognition,” something never before seen publicly