Open-Source AI Just Got a Power Boost From Meta and AWS

Two longtime tech rivals are teaming up to boost adoption of open-source artificial intelligence (AI): Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Meta.

The two tech giants have launched a joint startup accelerator aimed at helping early-stage companies build applications using Meta’s Llama family of artificial intelligence (AI) models, they said in a Monday (July 21) press release. Llama powers AI at Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram as well as its AI chatbot, Meta AI.

AWS and Meta will select 30 U.S.-based startups to participate in a six-month program that offers $200,000 in AWS credits and hands-on help from their engineers and generative AI experts. Startups must be in the U.S. in the Seed to Series B stages and building with Llama models.

The effort comes as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his ambition is for the company to be the global leader in AI.

“Our focus for this year is deepening the experience and making Meta AI the leading personal AI,” Zuckerberg said at his most recent earnings call.

Meta is investing heavily in model development, AI infrastructure and AI engineers and researchers to reach that goal. The partnership with AWS is a way to get Llama into more developers’ hands as competition intensifies between open and closed AI ecosystems.

Meanwhile, Zuckerberg has been personally recruiting AI experts to build what he called “the most elite and talent-dense team in the industry.” Meta acquired data company Scale AI for $14.3 billion, hired its CEO Alexandr Wang to head Meta’s superintelligence lab, and has reportedly dangled nine-figure salaries to entice AI engineers to join his company.

Zuckerberg has also poached AI researchers from OpenAI, Google and Safe Superintelligence, the AI startup founded by OpenAI’s former chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever. Most recently, he hired Apple’s head of AI models, Ruoming Pang.

Last week, Zuckerberg announced that Meta would spend “hundreds of billions of dollars on compute to build superintelligence.” He was referring to AI data centers that will power AI applications. Bank of America analyst Justin Post projected that Meta’s capital expenditures would top $229 billion over the next two years.

“We developed Llama because we believe greater access to powerful models is essential for driving progress in AI,” said Ash Jhaveri, vice president of AI partnerships at Meta, in the Monday release. “Our goal is to give developers and researchers the flexibility to experiment, adapt, and build responsibly.”

Meta and AWS said applications for the startup program will be accepted through Aug. 8. The choice of applicants will be based on the impact of their technologies and their technical ability, according to the companies.

To qualify for AWS credits, selected companies must join AWS Activate, the company’s startup hub. Final selections will be announced by Aug. 29. Interested startups can apply for the program here.

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