Two people who were briefed on the changes, who asked not to be named because the information is private, confirmed the loan increases.
Matt Gurman, who was recently promoted to CEO of AWS after running sales and marketing, met with founders in Silicon Valley this week, according to people familiar with the matter. He told executives that working with startups has always been a top priority, and he described AI companies as ideal customers for AWS, one of the people said.
An AWS spokesperson confirmed the credit increase and Gurman’s Silicon Valley visit, adding that the $200,000 credit will now expire in three years, instead of the $100,000 that previously expired in one year.
Amazon, best known for its massive online retail business, gets most of its profits from AWS, which it launched in 2006, long before rivals Microsoft and Google emerged. AWS is a market leader, with first-quarter sales of $25 billion, up 17% from a year ago.
However, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud are growing faster and benefiting from rapidly evolving AI models. With Microsoft’s backing, OpenAI launched ChatGPT on Azure in late 2022, and has since attracted a wave of AI workloads to Microsoft from large enterprises and small businesses. Google has a number of large language models, the most well-known of which is Gemini.
Amazon is trying to catch up in generative AI, pouring billions of dollars into OpenAI challenger Anthropic.
Last month, AWS CEO Adam Selipsky announced his resignation after three years at the helm, and Gurman was named his successor. During Selipsky’s time at the helm, Microsoft and Google gained market share in the cloud infrastructure market. One analyst told CNBC that Microsoft is “blowing away” AWS with generative AI.
Startups have long been fertile ground for cloud infrastructure companies, eager to attract ambitious founders with the potential to build the next multi-billion-dollar businesses.
Microsoft announced a partnership with Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator in November to offer participating startups $350,000 in Azure credits and access to graphics processing units (GPUs) for training AI models, a spokesperson said. Microsoft has since extended the $350,000 credit incentive to other accelerators, including AI Grant.
Startups that enroll in Microsoft’s Founders Hub program can receive up to $150,000 in Azure credits over four years, with no upfront venture funding required.
In addition to offering Activate, Amazon is also offering a new 10-week generative AI accelerator program, with participants able to access up to $1 million in cloud credits, according to the website.
Earlier on Friday, Amazon chief scientist Rohit Prasad told employees that the company had hired David Ruan, co-founder and CEO of AI startup Adept, along with several of Ruan’s colleagues. “Amazon has also licensed Adept’s agent technology, state-of-the-art multimodal models, and several datasets,” Adept said in a blog post.
clock: AWS plans to increase investment in cloud infrastructure in Singapore by $9 billion
