Amazon boost Web Services (AWS) has expanded its free credits program for startups to cover the costs of using major AI models to boost your market share of its AI platform, Bedrock. AWS now allows its cloud credits to be used for models from other providers such as Anthropic, Meta, Mistral AI, and Cohere.
Howard Wright, vice president and global head of startups at AWS, described this expansion as a gift to the startup ecosystem, hoping to incentivize startups to choose AWS as their primary cloud provider. The move comes after Amazon’s $4 billion investment in Anthropic, where Anthropic will use AWS as its primary cloud provider and utilize Trainium and Inferentia chips to build and train its models.
Wright mentioned that Amazon’s free credits will contribute to the revenue of Anthropic, one of the most popular models on Bedrock, emphasizing AWS’s commitment to ecosystem building. AWS has offered over $6 billion in credits to startups over the past decade and is currently offering $500,000 in credits for the latest Y Combinator cohort launched in January, which can be used on AI models and Amazon’s chips.
Major cloud providers like Microsoft Azure and Google also provide free credits to attract AI startups. However, investments by big tech companies in AI startups have drawn scrutiny from regulators, with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission opening an inquiry into Microsoft’s backing of OpenAI, as well as Google and Amazon’s investment in Anthropic.
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