Recently, two more large models have been launched on the cloud.
On May 30, 2024, Amazon Cloud Technology announced at the China Summit 2024 that Baichuan Intelligence and OneWorld will each have a basic model launched on Amazon's cloud platform. Baichuan Intelligence and OneThing are both suppliers of Chinese basic models, which will enrich Amazon's cloud business options.
Matt Garman, who will take office as CEO of Amazon Cloud Technology in early June, stated that China is one of the most strategically important regions for Amazon Cloud Technology globally. Over the past decade, Amazon Cloud Technology has invested and expanded its infrastructure in China. "We are in an exciting era where generative AI will change various industries in unprecedented ways."
Generative AI is the most remarkable advancement in artificial intelligence in the past two years. The ChatGPT released by OpenAI has sparked enthusiasm in the United States and China on both sides of the Pacific, and large model companies have emerged. In China alone, there are over a hundred large model products.
"We have seen the application of generative AI in some deep businesses, and some enterprises have surpassed the conversational user interface of early artificial intelligence and gained some practical business benefits." Ishit Vachhrajani, Global Enterprise Strategy General Manager of Amazon Cloud Technology, told First Financial reporters that industries such as manufacturing, automotive, transportation and logistics have seen the huge opportunities brought by generative AI.
"Some industries have reached the forefront of adopting generative AI, and the same is true in the cloud." Amazon Cloud Technology has collaborated with BMW Group, Toyota Group, and China's Nezha Motors, among others, such as BMW Group using Amazon Quicksight to achieve supply chain visualization.
This wave has been closely connected to cloud computing from the beginning.
Microsoft has not only invested heavily in OpenAI, but the two sides also have a close cooperative relationship: OpenAI has been using Microsoft's cloud computing Azure for large-scale model training. Google has its own cloud computing business and has also developed the large model product Gemini; Amazon is both the world's largest cloud computing provider in terms of market share, hosting numerous large models on its platform, and investing $4 billion in the artificial intelligence company Aerospace.
Cloud computing enterprises in the United States are closely integrated with large model enterprises, and the same applies to cloud computing enterprises in China. Giants such as Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent are both at the forefront of China's cloud computing market and are each striving to develop large models.
Traditionally, startups or small businesses have more motivation to go to the cloud because deploying basic equipment such as servers internally, equipping specialized operation and maintenance personnel, and corresponding energy consumption are all costly. If using cloud computing, small businesses can be more flexible and pay according to actual needs. Medium sized enterprises, especially large ones, are often more capable of building their own IT facilities and have a lower tendency to go to the cloud.
Enterprises have once again ignited their enthusiasm for technological change, and the new wave has also driven them to go cloud.
"Some traditional large enterprises didn't really want to go to the cloud from the beginning. However, now that they have generative AI, they have returned to the thinking path of going to the cloud." Ishit Vachhrajani said that without the cloud, generative AI is difficult for customers to adopt. Generative AI is a breeze for cloud vendors, prompting more enterprises to consider going to the cloud.
At the same time, generative AI technology will also bring a large number of startups. These startups have been conducting business in the cloud from the beginning, which will further bring a large amount of data to the cloud.
In the past few quarters, generative AI has been a business worth billions of dollars for Amazon Cloud Technology. According to Amazon's financial report for the first quarter of this year, its global annualized revenue from its cloud business has exceeded $100 billion.