Playing Catch Up: Amazon Enters AI Race with Custom Chips

Tech giant Amazon was one of the last big tech companies to join the generative AI gold rush, announcing its own Titan large language model in April, after Google announced Bard and Facebook launched LLaMA, following the massive success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT last year.

Now Amazon is aiming to catch up by creating custom microchips, the expensive and much sought-after hardware that powers generative AI models.

In an unmarked office building in Austin, Texas, two small rooms contain a handful of Amazon employees designing two types of microchips for training and accelerating...