Amazon Unveils Ambitious AI Endeavor With Project Olympus

In a move that signals its continued commitment to advancing artificial intelligence, Amazon has initiated a new project codenamed “Olympus,” aimed at training an ambitious AI model that it can integrate into its online store, Amazon Web Services unit, and Alexa products, according to a report by The Information. This endeavor is poised to compete with established AI giants like OpenAI and Google.

Amazon is investing millions in training this large language model (LLM). The tech giant has assembled a dedicated team for Project Olympus, composed of experts in AI and machine learning and “spearheaded by Rohit Prasad, former head of Alexa, who now reports directly to CEO Andy Jassy,” as reported by Reuters. This team will focus on developing and refining the AI model, with the ultimate goal of creating a system capable of sophisticated and versatile conversational abilities.

While details about the specific applications of Olympus remain confidential, industry experts speculate that it could have far-reaching implications across various sectors, from customer service and natural language processing to advanced analytics and automation.

Amazon’s foray into this ambitious AI project is indicative of the company’s strategic intent to remain at the forefront of technological innovation. In September, the company invested $4 billion into Anthropic, an AI startup. Additionally, Amazon has already “trained smaller models such as Titan,” though it delayed its original launch last year because of technical issues and how much better ChatGPT was in comparison.

Now with Olympus, Amazon aims to challenge the existing benchmarks set by notable AI models like ChatGPT and Bard. Two people familiar with the matter told Reuters that Olympus has 2 trillion parameters, “which could make it one of the largest models being trained.” In comparison, OpenAI’s GPT-4 model reportedly has 1 trillion parameters.

As Amazon ventures into the realm of sophisticated AI models, the industry eagerly awaits further updates on the progress and potential applications of Olympus.