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Race for AI Isn't Zero-sum, Says Amazon Cloud Boss

Amazon Web Services (AWS) CEO Adam Selipsky says there won't be one artificial intelligence platform to rule them all. Stephen Brashear / AFP
Amazon Web Services (AWS) CEO Adam Selipsky says there won't be one artificial intelligence platform to rule them all. Stephen Brashear / AFP
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Race for AI Isn't Zero-sum, Says Amazon Cloud Boss

Amazon Web Services (AWS) CEO Adam Selipsky says there won't be one artificial intelligence platform to rule them all. Stephen Brashear / AFP
Amazon Web Services (AWS) CEO Adam Selipsky says there won't be one artificial intelligence platform to rule them all. Stephen Brashear / AFP

As Google races with Microsoft and OpenAI to create world-changing generative artificial intelligence, some critics see Amazon as lagging behind.
"I respectfully disagree" with that viewpoint, said Adam Selipsky, Amazon's cloud chief, in an interview with AFP.
Tech giants like Microsoft, Google and Meta have made headlines talking about their own foundational models, or those of their close partners, that are key to AI and its ability to produce written works, images, videos or even computer code from simple user prompts.
But "there is simply not going to be one model to rule them all," argued Selipsky.
AWS, Amazon's industry-leading cloud branch, is already seeing customers "needing multiple models for multiple different use cases," he explained.
He cited the capabilities of various AI models available on the AWS Bedrock platform, such as Meta's Llama and Claude from Anthropic, as well as some from Mistral in France and Amazon's own Titan brand.
Generative AI is regarded in Silicon Valley as poised to revolutionize the way people get jobs done.
And cloud computing companies, which have massive computing power, troves of data and AI expertise, now host generative AI models. They are in a prime position to capitalize on the new technology -- but they have a lot to lose if they don't cough up the latest innovations.
25 years of AI
A pioneer of e-commerce, Amazon also dominates the cloud. AWS had 31 percent of the cloud computing market at the end of 2023, according to Stocklytics.
But rivals Microsoft and Google are gaining ground with their cloud businesses, with 24 percent and 11 percent market share respectively.
Thanks to a $13 billion investment in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, Microsoft is "in the driver's seat" of an ongoing cloud revolution, according to Wedbush analyst Dan Ives.
Microsoft and Google compete with their in-house, AI-infused digital assistants to help with creating content -- emails, presentations, ads -- and applications (especially chatbots).
AWS is less known to the public and its digital assistant Alexa is not yet as conversational as ChatGPT.
But Amazon has been in the AI business for more than 25 years, said Selipsky. "If you go back to personalization on the retail website in 1998 -- we called it personalization, but it was AI."
The Seattle firm has long had thousands of people working on the technology and has pivoted some of them to the new frontier of generative AI, Selipsky said.
"We've moved rapidly on new generations of our (AI) chips like Trainium, and building Amazon Bedrock, and getting it adopted quickly and coming out with exciting applications on top of the models, like Amazon Q", an AI assistant, he said.
Selipsky, who took command of AWS in 2021, replacing Andy Jassy, who stepped into the chief executive role vacated by founder Jeff Bezos, was confident Amazon would remain a leader in cloud computing.
Clients eye AI programs
As proof, he points to AWS customers and partners, including Nvidia.
The high-profile chipmaker recently announced it is building a "supercomputer" on AWS using Nvidia's own high-performing processors, the ultra sophisticated and coveted GPUs.
Most notably, Amazon has invested $4 billion in Anthropic, an OpenAI rival that is also backed by Google. The start-up will use AWS and its Trainium chips to build AI models and help "improve our technology," said Selipsky,
When asked about exciting aspects of generative AI, Selipsky cited examples of ramped up productivity for its clients.
AWS user pharmaceutical giant Pfizer estimates that it will launch more powerful drugs faster, achieving as much as a billion dollars in annual savings due to AI, according to Selipsky.
Airlines and other industries are already using generative AI to power chatbots that interact with customers.
And while chatbots can make mistakes, companies reason that "human beings don't give 100 percent accuracy either," Selipsky said. "And in many cases, the models are actually outperforming the accuracy and the usefulness of live agents."
AWS cut hundreds of jobs this month, particularly in sales and marketing, to better focus on AI and other priorities.
But Selipsky was adamant that AI has not replaced any of the cloud platform workers.
"AWS has thousands of job postings online today, and yesterday, and the day before, and we will also have (them) tomorrow," he added.

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Technology

AI to Track Icebergs Adrift at Sea in Boon for Science

© Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP
© Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP
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AI to Track Icebergs Adrift at Sea in Boon for Science

© Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP
© Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP

British scientists said Thursday that a world-first AI tool to catalogue and track icebergs as they break apart into smaller chunks could fill a "major blind spot" in predicting climate change.

Icebergs release enormous volumes of freshwater when they melt on the open water, affecting global climate patterns and altering ocean currents and ecosystems, reported AFP.

But scientists have long struggled to keep track of these floating behemoths once they break into thousands of smaller chunks, their fate and impact on the climate largely lost to the seas.

To fill in the gap, the British Antarctic Survey has developed an AI system that automatically identifies and names individual icebergs at birth and tracks their sometimes decades-long journey to a watery grave.

Using satellite images, the tool captures the distinct shape of icebergs as they break off -- or calve -- from glaciers and ice sheets on land.

As they disintegrate over time, the machine performs a giant puzzle problem, linking the smaller "child" fragments back to the "parent" and creating detailed family trees never before possible at this scale.

It represents a huge improvement on existing methods, where scientists pore over satellite images to visually identify and track only the largest icebergs one by one.

The AI system, which was tested using satellite observations over Greenland, provides "vital new information" for scientists and improves predictions about the future climate, said the British Antarctic Survey.

Knowing where these giant slabs of freshwater were melting into the ocean was especially crucial with ice loss expected to increase in a warming world, it added.

"What's exciting is that this finally gives us the observations we've been missing," Ben Evans, a machine learning expert at the British Antarctic Survey, said in a statement.

"We've gone from tracking a few famous icebergs to building full family trees. For the first time, we can see where each fragment came from, where it goes and why that matters for the climate."

This use of AI could also be adapted to aid safe passage for navigators through treacherous polar regions littered by icebergs.

Iceberg calving is a natural process. But scientists say the rate at which they were being lost from Antarctica is increasing, probably because of human-induced climate change.

 

Technology

AMD Predicts Weaker First-Quarter Sales, Shares Plunge on Nvidia Comparisons

An AMD logo and a computer motherboard appear in this illustration created on August 25, 2025. (Reuters)
An AMD logo and a computer motherboard appear in this illustration created on August 25, 2025. (Reuters)
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AMD Predicts Weaker First-Quarter Sales, Shares Plunge on Nvidia Comparisons

An AMD logo and a computer motherboard appear in this illustration created on August 25, 2025. (Reuters)
An AMD logo and a computer motherboard appear in this illustration created on August 25, 2025. (Reuters)

Advanced Micro Devices on Tuesday forecast a slight decline in quarterly revenue, raising concerns about whether it ​can effectively challenge Nvidia in the booming AI market and sending its shares tumbling 8% in after-hours trade.

The lackluster prediction comes despite an unexpected boost from sales of certain artificial intelligence chips to China, which began in the last quarter after the Trump administration approved a license for orders that AMD received in early 2025.

And without those sales to China which generated $390 million, AMD's data-center segment would have missed estimates for the fourth quarter.

AMD said it expects revenue of about $9.8 billion this quarter, plus or minus $300 million. That's down from $10.27 billion in the fourth-quarter which was up 34% year-on-year and ahead of LSEG ‌estimates for $9.67 billion.

PALES ‌NEXT TO NVIDIA

Though AMD is seen as one of the ‌few ⁠contenders ​that can seriously ‌challenge Nvidia, investors noted the stark contrast between the two companies' performances. AMD expects an adjusted gross margin of 55% this quarter. Nvidia has said it expects adjusted gross margin in the mid-70% range during its fiscal 2027.

"The expectations for large blowout quarters for AI-related hardware companies have skewed what the market is looking for," said Bob O'Donnell, president of TECHnalysis Research.

The forecast for the current first quarter includes $100 million from sales to China, where the situation remains "dynamic," AMD CEO Lisa Su said on a conference call with investors.

The US government ⁠has placed restrictions on the exports of advanced chips to China, but AMD received licenses to sell modified versions of its MI300 series ‌of AI chips there. Its MI308 chip competes with Nvidia's H20 ‍chip in China.

OPENAI SALES

AMD has accelerated its ‍product launches and is moving into selling full AI systems to better compete against Nvidia, which now ‍provides "rack-scale" systems that combine GPUs, CPUs and networking gear.

Last year, it entered into a multi-year deal to supply AI chips to ChatGPT-owner OpenAI, which would bring in tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue and give the startup the option to buy up to roughly 10% of the chipmaker.

Su reiterated on Tuesday that the company ​expects sales of a new flagship AI server to OpenAI and others to rise rapidly in the second half of this year, saying a global memory-chip crunch will not ⁠slow its plans.

"I do not believe that we will be supply-limited in terms of the ramp that we put in place," Su said.

BEYOND OPENAI

As Big Tech and governments across the globe double down on investing in AI hardware, shares in Santa Clara, California-based AMD have doubled since the start of 2025, outperforming a 60% bump in the broader chip index.

But analysts remain concerned that AMD's success remains tied to a handful of customers that rivals such as Nvidia could try to poach. Reuters reported this week that Nvidia made a $20 billion move to hire most of chip startup Groq's founders after OpenAI held chip supply discussions with the startup.

"Growth appears concentrated in large deployments and specific regions, and China shipments are significant enough to influence a quarter," said eMarketer analyst Gadjo Sevilla.

Revenue in AMD's key data-center segment grew 39% to $5.38 billion in the ‌fourth quarter. But excluding sales of the MI308, which is a data-center chip, that revenue would have been $4.99 billion, below estimates of $5.07 billion.

Technology

Switch 2 Sales Boost Nintendo Results but Chip Shortage Looms

This photo taken on November 4, 2025 shows a woman taking photos of a Super Mario figure at the Nintendo Tokyo store in Tokyo. (AFP)
This photo taken on November 4, 2025 shows a woman taking photos of a Super Mario figure at the Nintendo Tokyo store in Tokyo. (AFP)
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Switch 2 Sales Boost Nintendo Results but Chip Shortage Looms

This photo taken on November 4, 2025 shows a woman taking photos of a Super Mario figure at the Nintendo Tokyo store in Tokyo. (AFP)
This photo taken on November 4, 2025 shows a woman taking photos of a Super Mario figure at the Nintendo Tokyo store in Tokyo. (AFP)

The runaway success of the Switch 2 console drove up Nintendo's net profit by more than 50 percent in the nine months to December, the Japanese video game giant said Tuesday.

But a global memory chip shortage, created by frenzied demand for artificial intelligence hardware, could push up manufacturing costs.

The Switch 2 became the world's fastest-selling games console after launching to a fan frenzy last summer.

It is the successor to the original Switch, which soared in popularity during the pandemic when games such as "Animal Crossing" struck a chord during long lockdowns.

Both are hybrid devices that can be connected to a TV or used on-the-go.

In April-December, net profit jumped 51.3 percent year-on-year to 358.9 billion yen ($2.3 billion), and revenue nearly doubled on-year to 1.9 trillion yen, Nintendo said.

But the firm kept its annual unit sales target for the Switch 2 steady at 19 million, and also held its full-year net profit forecast of 350 billion yen.

"Nintendo Switch 2 got off to a good start following its launch on June 5 and unit sales continued to grow through the holiday season," the company said.

Nearly 17.4 million Switch 2 devices were sold in the nine-month period, it added.

"Maintaining momentum is certainly a big focus for Nintendo," Krysta Yang of the Nintendo-focused Kit and Krysta Podcast told AFP.

A lack of heavy-hitting first-party new games for the Switch 2 in coming months risks hindering growth, although third-party titles such as "Resident Evil Requiem" should help fill the gap, she said.

Nintendo said Tuesday it planned to release "Mario Tennis Fever" this month and "Pokemon Pokopia" in March.

While the firm is diversifying into hit movies and theme parks, consoles remain the core of its business.

The Switch 1 has now sold 155.37 million units -- overtaking the Nintendo DS console to be its best-selling hardware of all time.

But soaring prices for memory chips, used in gaming consoles as well as phones, laptops and other electronics, will likely be a headwind for the company.

Their prices have been pushed up as chipmakers focus on producing the advanced memory chips in huge demand to power AI data centers.

"Nintendo and other console manufacturers are publicly keeping quiet about the impact of the shortage," gaming industry consultant Serkan Toto told AFP.

But "users can forget the past when consoles always became cheaper in tandem with component costs falling over time", with price hikes potentially on the way in 2026, he said.

Yang said she thought a price increase for the Switch 2 "is not out of the question" but added that Nintendo "would likely exhaust all other options" before doing so.