• AI KATANA
  • Posts
  • Amazon announces new AI chip as it deepens Nvidia relationship

Amazon announces new AI chip as it deepens Nvidia relationship

Also: Employers willing to pay ‘premium’ for AI-skilled workers: AWS study

Author

AI KATANA
November 28, 2023

Hi!

In recent AI news, Amazon's AWS has unveiled the Trainium2 AI chip and Graviton4 processor, enhancing its cloud offerings and deepening its collaboration with Nvidia. Concurrently, Amazon introduced "Amazon Q," a workplace AI chatbot, joining other corporate chatbots in the market and emphasizing data security. Meanwhile, Sports Illustrated faces allegations of using AI-generated articles, spotlighting ethical concerns in journalism. In the workforce sector, a study by Amazon Web Services reveals a significant demand for AI-skilled workers, with employers ready to offer substantial salary premiums. NVIDIA announced a generative AI microservice, NeMo Retriever, to boost business applications like chatbots. In the venture capital sphere, AI video tool startup Pika raised $55 million, underscoring the growth in AI-driven video creation. Dell also made a notable move by securing a $150 million hardware deal with AI startup Imbue, indicating a growing trend of partnerships between tech giants and AI startups.

Sliced:

  • 📦 Amazon announces new AI chip as it deepens Nvidia relationship

  • 🤖 Amazon Introduces Q, an A.I. Chatbot for Companies

  • 🏈 Sports Illustrated accused of publishing AI-written articles

  • 🧑🏽‍💼 Employers willing to pay ‘premium’ for AI-skilled workers: AWS study

Amazon's AWS cloud unit recently unveiled the Trainium2 artificial intelligence chip and the general-purpose Graviton4 processor at its Reinvent conference in Las Vegas. Concurrently, the company announced plans to offer access to Nvidia's latest H200 AI graphics processing units. This move reflects Amazon Web Services' strategy to distinguish itself in the cloud market by offering a range of cost-effective solutions, including high-end products like Nvidia's GPUs. The Graviton4 processors, based on Arm architecture, are notable for their energy efficiency and promise 30% improved performance over Graviton3 chips, making them a potentially attractive option for organizations seeking to optimize their cloud expenses in a high-inflation economy.

Amazon has introduced "Amazon Q," an AI chatbot designed for workplace use, developed by its cloud computing division. Unlike consumer-focused chatbots, Amazon Q is tailored to assist employees with tasks like summarizing documents, filling out internal support tickets, and answering policy-related queries. It joins the market alongside other corporate chatbots like Microsoft's Copilot and Google's Duet AI. Prioritizing data security and privacy, Amazon Q integrates with Amazon's cloud infrastructure, allowing it to adhere to existing corporate security permissions and data access protocols. The chatbot operates on a platform called Bedrock, which links various AI systems, and is priced at $20 per user each month. This launch is part of Amazon's broader effort to advance in AI, including investing in AI startups and enhancing its computing infrastructure for AI applications.

Sports Illustrated faced accusations of publishing articles generated by AI under fabricated author names. The issue came to light after tech publisher Futurism discovered author headshots on an AI-generated image website. The Sports Illustrated Union expressed horror and demanded adherence to basic journalistic standards. The magazine's owner, Arena Group, denied the report's accuracy but launched an internal investigation and ceased its partnership with Advon Commerce, the third-party content provider. Arena Group claimed Advon Commerce assured them that humans wrote and edited the articles in question. The incident highlights growing concerns in the media world about AI's potential to replace journalists and spread misinformation, with various newsrooms experimenting with AI and setting guidelines for its use. This controversy has particularly impacted Sports Illustrated, especially as Arena Group had previously made significant staff cuts.

A recent survey commissioned by Amazon Web Services has revealed that hiring workers skilled in AI is a priority for about 73% of employers. However, finding such talent remains a challenge for the majority of them. Organizations are prepared to significantly increase pay levels for AI-skilled workers across various business functions, with anticipated salary hikes averaging 43% in sales and marketing, 42% in finance, 37% in legal, regulatory, and compliance, and 35% in human resources. The expected pay premiums are attributed to the widespread application and key benefits of AI, such as task automation, enhanced creativity, and improved outcomes, leading to increased productivity and high-quality work. The Wall Street Journal reported a similar trend, describing a recruiting frenzy in the U.S., with companies willing to offer high salaries to attract top AI talent. For instance, Amazon listed a senior manager position in applied science and generative AI with a salary of $340,300. Furthermore, the study by Access Partnership for AWS, which polled over 3,000 employees and 1,300 organizations, highlighted the transformative potential of generative AI, with McKinsey predicting it could automate up to 70% of business activities by 2030, adding trillions of dollars to the global economy. To combat the AI talent shortage, companies are resorting to strategies like partnering with educational institutions and utilizing on-demand and gig workers.

🛠️ AI tools updates

NVIDIA has announced the launch of a generative AI microservice designed for enhancing business applications, including chatbots, copilots, and summarization tools. This microservice, powered by NVIDIA's NeMo Retriever, allows enterprises to connect large language models to their data, enabling highly accurate responses in AI applications. The NeMo Retriever operates as a semantic-retrieval microservice, offering advanced algorithms optimized by NVIDIA for improved response accuracy. It facilitates the connection of AI applications to business data across various clouds and data centers. This development is significant for companies like Cadence, Dropbox, SAP, and ServiceNow, who are among the first to implement these RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) capabilities in their custom AI applications. NVIDIA's initiative highlights the growing trend of integrating advanced AI tools in business environments to improve efficiency, accuracy, and productivity.

💵 Venture Capital updates

Pika, a startup specializing in AI tools for video generation and editing, has raised $55 million in a funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The platform, Pika 1.0, offers innovative videography tools, including a generative AI model capable of editing videos in various styles like 3D animation, anime, and cinematic. Pika, co-founded by Demi Guo and Chenlin Meng, former Stanford AI Lab PhD students, aims to simplify high-quality video production. Pika's rapid growth and the launch of Pika 1.0, which comes just six months after emerging from stealth, reflect the strong demand for generative AI. The platform competes with other AI video tools like Runway and Stability AI, offering unique features like extending video length or transforming styles. This funding and development indicate a significant trend in the democratization and innovation in video creation through AI technology.

Dell Technologies Inc. has secured a significant $150 million deal with artificial intelligence startup Imbue, marking a strategic move to expand its presence in the AI market. This deal involves Dell supplying Imbue with servers that are essential for processing the large volumes of data needed for developing AI systems and building advanced reasoning models. Imbue, having recently raised $200 million in funding from various firms including Nvidia Corp., is focused on creating its own AI foundation models from scratch. This venture requires substantial computing power. Unlike other AI startups that often rely on cloud services from larger tech companies, Imbue has chosen to purchase computing hardware directly from Dell. This approach is seen as more cost-effective and offers greater flexibility, reducing reliance on a single large tech provider. This partnership reflects the broader trend of AI startups partnering with tech companies for resources and support, as seen with Microsoft, Google, and Amazon aggressively forming alliances in the AI space.

🫡 Meme of the day

⭐️ Generative AI image of the day