Amazon joins the generative AI race with ‘Olympus’

The generative AI season is here to stay, and how. Now Amazon is prepping up to launch a large language model, Olympus, aimed at strengthening its online retail platform, enhancing features within Alexa voice assistants, and supporting its Amazon Web Services (AWS) division. This move, as reported by Reuters, places Amazon in direct competition with OpenAI, Microsoft, Google and a plethora of other big tech, by venturing into the domain of conversational AI software.

Olympus is expected to outshine Titan, Amazon’s current offering to cloud clients, by exhibiting superior performance. Amazon had previously delayed the launch of Titan due to its inferior performance compared to models behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Olympus, expected to be announced as early as December by AWS, represents a leap in Amazon’s quest to develop an AI model that can match or even exceed the capabilities of its competitors. With an ambitious model boasting two trillion parameters, Olympus is set to be one of the largest models under training, signalling Amazon’s significant investment in the AI space.

Beyond its in-house development, Amazon has invested up to $4 billion in Anthropic, an AI startup based in San Francisco. Collaborating with Anthropic and AI21 Labs, Amazon aims to offer services via AWS. This move aligns with its vision to make AWS more appealing to enterprise clients seeking high-performing AI models.

The thrust into large language models is a strategic shift for Amazon. It is diverting investment from its retail unit to the development of generative AI and LLMs. This change also sheds light on the global trend where companies worldwide are pursuing their own LLMs, mirroring the impact of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Along similar lines, Chinese tech giant Alibaba, on Tuesday, has unveiled Tongyi Qianwen 2.0, its latest large language model. This advancement, a follow-up to its predecessor, signifies Alibaba’s push to compete with American tech giants in the AI domain.

This is a significant chapter in the quest for cutting-edge conversational AI software worldwide as companies race to develop sophisticated large language models and the landscape of AI technology continues to evolve.