Amazon Announces Supercomputer, New Server Powered by Homegrown AI Chips | Hacker News Reader

Amazon Announces Supercomputer, New Server Powered by Homegrown AI Chips

wsj.com

45 pointswallflower16 comments

I wonder whether leadership is ignorant OR informed and willing to gamble that they, unlike everyone else, will succeed.

My prediction is that 1. SW for said chips will be inferior, 2. leadership will force everyone to use it anyway, 3. Anthropic will give it a shot and be handcuffed to mediocrity, 4. Anthropic folks will pivot to something that doesn’t suck.

Amazon invested in Anthropic using billions in AWS credit and I guess it would be covered in contract that some percent of the credit could be used only for this chip.

Weird that the article frames the chips as “ Powered by Austin’s Annapurna”. It does say further down that Annapurna was an acquired Israeli company. But I wonder if the framing and emphasis on an American location is meant to avoid antitrust scrutiny from the new administration.

> antitrust scrutiny from the new administration.

Huh? The incoming administration has a history of showing it not only doesn’t care about antitrust, it actively encourages monopolies.

If you read the article, they literally say it’s an Israeli company, and the AI chip lab is in Austin.

> The heart of AWS’s efforts is in Austin, Texas, home to an AI chip lab run by Annapurna Labs, an Israeli microelectronics company Amazon acquired for about $350 million in 2015.

If Amazon purchased Annapurna in 2015, then maybe you mean the staff are still located in Israel? I think if they are a department of Amazon then they are a 'US company' in that way.

I design and write firmware for these chips. The AI accelerator team is very much in Austin (and in California as well).

> Huh? The incoming administration has a history of showing it not only doesn’t care about antitrust, it actively encourages monopolies.

Just like every other administration. Microsoft (and Google, and ...) did not becomeva monopoly during the current or past administration. For some reason, America loves monopolies. (it is easier to talk to 1 guy instead of 10).

> The incoming administration has a history of

The incoming administration has no history yet.

https://archive.ph/fF0vu

Reply on news.ycombinator.com