AWS Announces $230 Million Commitment for Generative AI Startups

Amazon Web Services announced a $230 million commitment for startups around the world to accelerate the creation of generative AI applications. This will provide startups, especially early-stage companies, with AWS credits, mentorship, and education to further their use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies. Part of the new commitment will fund the second cohort of the AWS Generative AI Accelerator, a program that provides hands-on expertise and up to $1 million in credits to each of the top 80 early-stage startups that are using generative AI to solve complex challenges. Applications for the AWS Generative AI Accelerator open today and will be accepted until July 19.

“For more than 18 years, AWS has helped more startups to build, launch, and scale their business than any other cloud provider—it’s no coincidence that 96% of all AI/ML unicorns run on AWS,” said, Matt Wood, vice president, Artificial Intelligence Products at AWS

Interested startups can learn more about how to access these funds here. Startups can use AWS credits to access AWS compute, storage, and database technologies, as well as AWS Trainium and AWS Inferentia2, energy-efficient AI chips that offer high performance at the lowest cost. These credits can also be used on Amazon SageMaker, a fully managed service that helps companies build and train their own FMs, as well as to access models and tools to easily and securely build generative AI applications through Amazon Bedrock.

AWS Generative AI Accelerator continues to launch successful startups

The AWS Generative AI Accelerator identifies top early-stage startups that are using generative AI to solve complex challenges in areas such as financial services, healthcare and life sciences, media and entertainment, business, and climate change, among others. Participants will access sessions on ML performance enhancement, stack optimization, and go-to-market strategies. The 10-week program will match participants with both business and technical mentors based on industry vertical. Startups will receive up to $1 million each in AWS credits to help them build, train, test, and launch their generative AI solutions. They will also have access to industry experts, technology, and technical sessions from NVIDIA, the program’s presenting partner, and be invited to join the NVIDIA Inception program, designed to nurture cutting-edge startups.