Amazon developing ‘Olympus’ AI to compete with OpenAI: Reports

In an exciting move, Amazon is currently in the process of developing cutting-edge conversational AI software, aiming to compete directly with technology giants like OpenAI and Microsoft.

This ambitious project, internally referred to as ‘Olympus,’ is a large language model that Amazon envisions will not only revolutionise its online retail platform but also supercharge features within its popular Alexa voice assistant, as found in devices such as the Echo, and provide invaluable support to its Amazon Web Services (AWS) division.

Olympus to outperform AWS's titan models

According to reports by The Information (an American media company), Olympus is expected to outshine Amazon's current offering, the titan group of large language models that are being provided to AWS's cloud clients.

Amazon aims to make an official announcement about Olympus, possibly as early as December, though the exact timeline for its completion and deployment remains uncertain.

The background to this development can be traced back to AWS's earlier attempt with titan, which faced delays and inferior performance compared to the language model technology behind OpenAI's renowned ChatGPT. The AI landscape is highly competitive, and Amazon is determined to stay ahead of the curve.

More titan models

As of now, AWS offers only one titan model to its customers, primarily for developing applications with personalisation and search capabilities. However, two more titan models, designed to assist customers in creating applications that can provide ChatGPT-like text responses or summarising lengthy text passages, are not widely accessible.

In addition to its in-house models, AWS also provides access to large language models developed by other providers, like Anthropic.

Overseeing the development of Olympus is Rohit Prasad, who holds the position of head scientist for artificial general intelligence at Amazon. His involvement underscores the significance of this project and Amazon's commitment to remaining at the forefront of AI technology.

Alibaba joins the race with Tongyi Qianwen 2.0

In a parallel development, Alibaba, the Chinese tech giant, has unveiled its latest iteration of an artificial intelligence model, Tongyi Qianwen 2.0. Alibaba is determined to compete with its US counterparts like Amazon and Microsoft in the rapidly evolving AI space.

Tongyi Qianwen 2.0 is described by Alibaba as a ‘significant advancement over its predecessor,’ which was originally introduced in April. Large language models like Tongyi Qianwen 2.0 are extensively trained on vast datasets and serve as the foundation for generative AI applications, similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT.