Amazon’s AWS (Amazon Web Services) cloud computing unit announced on Tuesday (2) that it will adopt Nvidia’s key technology in next generations of AI (artificial intelligence) computing chips, as the company ramps up its efforts to win major customers in the artificial intelligence space.
AWS said it will adopt a technology called “NVLink Fusion” in a future chip, without a specific release date, called Trainium4. NVLink technology creates fast connections between different types of chips and is one of Nvidia’s crown jewels.
The two companies made this announcement during the annual AWS cloud computing conference, which lasts 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, which was first revealed last year.
Nvidia has encouraged other semiconductor companies to adopt its NVLink technology, with Intel, Qualcomm and now AWS joining in. The technology will help Amazon’s cloud computing unit build larger AI servers that can recognize and communicate with each other more quickly, a critical 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 infrastructures within their data centers, providing greater speed and availability.
“Together, Nvidia and AWS are creating the compute infrastructure for the AI industrial revolution, bringing advanced technology to every company, in every country, and accelerating the world’s path to intelligence,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a statement.
In a separate statement, Amazon also said it would launch new servers based on a chip called Trainium3. The new servers, available as of Tuesday, each contain 144 chips and have more than four times the processing power of AWS’s previous generation of AI, and consume 40% less power, Dave Brown, vice president of compute and machine learning services at AWS, told Reuters.
Brown did not release absolute numbers on power or performance, but said AWS intends to compete with competitors — including Nvidia — 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. “This means they will be able to say: This is the chip I want to use.”