Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Tuesday launched its in-house-built Trainium3 artificial intelligence (AI) chip, marking a significant push to compete with Nvidia Corp in the lucrative market for AI computing power.
The move intensifies competition in the AI chip market, where Nvidia dominates with an estimated 80 to 90 percent market share for products used in training large language models that power the likes of ChatGPT.
Google last week caused tremors in the industry when it was reported that Facebook-parent Meta Platforms Inc would employ Google AI chips in data centers, signaling new competition for Nvidia.
Photo: Amazon Web Services/Handout via Reuters
This followed the release last month of Google’s latest AI model, which was trained using the company’s in-house chips, not Nvidia’s.
Responding to Google’s successes, Nvidia wrote on social media that it was “delighted” by the competition, but added that Nvidia “is a generation ahead of the industry.”
AWS, which would make the technology available to its cloud computing clients, said its new chip is lower cost than rivals and delivers over four times the computing performance of its predecessor while using 40 percent less energy.
“Trainium3 offers the industry’s best price performance for large-scale AI training and inference,” AWS CEO Matt Garman said at a launch event in Las Vegas. Inference is the execution phase of AI, where the model stops scouring the Internet for training and starts performing tasks in real-world scenarios.
Energy consumption is one of the major concerns about the AI revolution, with major tech companies scaling back or pausing their net zero emissions commitments as they race to keep up on the technology.
AWS said its chip could reduce the cost of training and operating AI models by up to 50 percent compared with systems that use equivalent graphics processing units, mainly from Nvidia.
“Training cutting-edge models now requires infrastructure investments that only a handful of organizations can afford,” AWS said, positioning Trainium3 as a way to democratize access to high-powered AI computing.
AWS said several companies are already using the technology, including Anthropic PBC, maker of the Claude AI assistant and a competitor to ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.
AWS also announced that it is already developing Trainium4, which is expected to deliver at least three times the performance of Trainium3 for standard AI workloads.
The next-generation chip would support Nvidia’s technology, allowing it to work alongside that company’s servers and hardware.
Amazon’s in-house chip development reflects a broader trend among cloud service providers seeking to reduce dependence on external suppliers while offering customers more cost-effective alternatives for AI workloads.
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