Amazon.com Inc’s AWS cloud computing unit announced on Tuesday that it will adopt a key Nvidia technology in future generations of its artificial intelligence computing chips, as the company steps up efforts to win large AI customers for its services.
AWS, or Amazon Web Services, said it will adopt a technology called ‘NVLink Fusion’ in a future chip, with no set release date, known as Trainium4. NVLink technology creates fast connections between different types of chips and is one of Nvidia’s crown jewels.
The companies made the announcement as part of the annual AWS cloud computing conference, which runs for a week in Las Vegas and attracts about 60,000 people. Amazon is also expected to introduce new versions of its Nova AI model, initially revealed last year.
Nvidia has been encouraging other semiconductor companies to adopt its NVLink technology, with Intel, Qualcomm and now AWS joining in. The technology will help AWS build larger AI servers that can recognize and communicate with each other faster, a crucial factor in training large AI models that require the interconnection of thousands of machines. As part of the partnership with Nvidia, customers will have access to what AWS calls ‘AI Factories’, unique AI infrastructure within their own data centers, providing greater speed and availability.
“Together, Nvidia and AWS are creating the computing infrastructure for the AI industrial revolution, bringing advanced AI to every company, in every country, and accelerating the world’s path to intelligence,” Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang said in a statement.
In a separate statement, Amazon said it is launching new servers based on a chip called Trainium3. The new servers, available starting Tuesday, contain 144 chips each and have more than four times the processing power of AWS’ previous generation of AI, while consuming 40% less power, Dave Brown, vice president of compute and machine learning services at AWS, told Reuters.
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Brown didn’t release absolute numbers on power or performance, but said AWS aims to compete with rivals — including Nvidia — based on price.
“We need to prove to them that we have a product that delivers the performance they need at a fair price, so they get optimal value for money,” Brown said. ‘That means they’ll be able to say, ‘That’s the chip I want to use.”
