AWS Announces $300k for Startups in Generative AI Accelerator
Amazon's credits, resources, and tools will help startups bring their AI ideas to life
The Gist
The AWS Generative AI Accelerator program helps startups grow their company with access to AI models, market strategies, and optimization of the machine learning stack.
Selected startups will receive $300k in AWS credits to build their products and have the opportunity to network with investors and potential customers.
We’ll explain later why these cloud computing credits are so important for AI startups.
The program is open to startups worldwide, but companies already building their tech on AWS will benefit the most.
The program will last for 10 weeks, and applications are open from April 4 to April 17.
Runway, an AWS startup customer, collaborated with AWS and Nvidia to create Gen-2, a multimodal AI system that can create unique videos with text, images, or video clips using the power of AI tools.
More Detail
Amazon is providing more incentives for jumping on the generative AI bandwagon. For startups promising new, exceptional, and innovative ideas in AI, the AWS Generative AI Accelerator program offers a leg up.
The AWS Generative AI Accelerator program is aimed at the best startups in the industry that need Amazon Web Services' resources to take their ideas to the next level. AWS will provide selected startups with several tools to grow their company, such as access to AI models, market strategies, and optimization of the machine learning stack.
The selected startups will also network with investors and potential customers, and receive $300,000 in AWS credits to build their products. AWS says that the program will be most beneficial for candidates who have a minimal viable product, a growing customer base, and are "working to enhance their product value proposition in order to scale."
While the AWS Generative AI Accelerator is open to all startups worldwide, companies that are already building their tech on AWS will benefit the most from the program. The accelerator program will last for 10 weeks.
The AWS Generative AI Accelerator application opened on April 4 and will remain open until April 17. The accelerator will announce its participants in late April.
Runway, one of AWS' startup customers, collaborated with AWS and Nvidia to create Gen-2, a multimodal AI system that can create unique videos with text, images, or video clips using the power of AI tools. Runway's AI Magic Tools are being used in the filmmaking industry, and notably used in the Oscar-winning picture, "Everything, Everywhere, All At Once."
Why Cloud Credits are a Competitive Funding Source
$300k in AWS credits can be very significant for AI startups, as computational demands for training and inference in AI is incredibly high. AWS cloud computing credits offset these costs, making it easier for startups to develop and scale their AI models.
AI computations often require large amounts of data storage, high-performance computing (HPC), and specialized hardware such as Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) or Tensor Processing Units (TPUs).
Just to give you an idea of scale, Nvidia is the market leader in GPUs, and Facebook announced in 2022 that they were procuring 16,000 Nvidia A100 GPUs to train their AI models. Each of these chips cost roughly $10,000.
Thus, free credits can significantly reduce the financial burden on startups. While these credits are just as good as money for AI startups, the margins from hyperscale cloud providers like Amazon and Microsoft are much higher than cash.
Microsoft followed a similar path when they invested in OpenAI. Azure credits were half of the $1 billion they invested in 2019, and were also part of their $10 billion investment earlier in 2023.
We’ll likely see more cloud computing credit offers from hyperscale players. Google has not made an announcement yet, which is surprising since CEO Sundar Pichai declared a Code Red earlier this year to prioritize Google’s AI capabilities. Perhaps this is even more evidence that they are falling behind in the AI race.