AMZN - Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ)

[robertbanking]

Hello you very wonderful and amazing individuals that make up this forum. I sincerely hope you are having a good week and doing well.

I was recently doing a Value Investing course which i found very interesting. It looks at relative valuations such as doing the Enterprise Value calculation for a business. This works for small obscure businesses to try and find a business that is undervalued. If the Enterprise Value is lower than the market cap, this could be one sign the business could be undervalued. I note for high Growth Stocks such as Amazon this calculation would not be relevant and even Discounted Cash Flow calculations would be difficult as the company is rapidly expanding. I please wondered the best calculation to do on a rapidly growing stock such as Amazon please? If anyone kindly had any thoughts on this i would be forever grateful and thankful for your support with this, it would mean the world to me.

Sending you lots of good wishes and i truly hope you have a wonderful and amazing life. Very best wishes to you and take care.

 

[Dona Ferentes]

Amazon founder Bezos sells shares worth over $4bn​

By Mariko Oi & Lucy Hooker
BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68277678
The multi-billionaire moved to Miami last year, where there is no tax on share sales above $250,000

 

[mullokintyre]

Amazon mega billionaire is probably one of the richers worried by Trumps win.
if he is indeed true to his word and takes the USA into isolationist mode, Amazon will suffer signifcantly if it cannot be the ticket clicker on all that stuff that is shipped from China to the US.
Mick

 

[Dona Ferentes]

Amazon building the world’s largest supercomputer​

By Adrian Tan |
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced plans to build what it claims will be the world's largest artificial intelligence supercomputer. Dubbed Project Rainier, the supercomputer is expected to be operational by 2025. The announcement was made on 3 December at the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas.

The computer will be powered by AWS's "Trainium" chips, which are custom-designed AI accelerators intended to deliver high performance while reducing costs for AI training and inference. The second-generation Trainium2 chips are expected to quadruple the performance of their predecessors, and are said to provide a cost-effective alternative to Nvidia's GPUs.

Ethical AI
The supercomputer will support the development of advanced AI models for Anthropic, an AI safety and research company in which Amazon has invested US$4bn, with another US$4bn of funding announced on 22 November.

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, both former senior employees of OpenAI. It has developed the "Claude" family of large language models optimised for different applications, with tasks ranging from customer interaction and rapid data processing, to problem-solving, advanced coding and content creation.

Claude implements "Constitutional AI", which is a methodology to align AI systems with human values and ethical principles through a predefined "constitution". This set of rules explicitly defines ethical boundaries, ensuring that the AI generates responses that are helpful, honest and harmless. This approach distinguishes Anthropic from OpenAI, which has faced scrutiny over its profit-oriented structure and transparency regarding safety measures. Claude is primarily trained and deployed on AWS infrastructure (although available on other platforms, such as Google Cloud's Vertex AI).

Amazon Nova
In addition to hardware advancements, AWS announced "Amazon Nova", a new family of generative AI models for enterprise customers, along with a suite of tools that allow businesses to create smaller, cost-effective AI models, manage AI agents, and ensure output accuracy through logical validation.

The Nova models support over 200 languages, and the lineup includes Nova Canvas for image generation and Nova Reel for video generation.
Amazon claims the models are at least 75% less expensive than the best-performing models in their respective classes.

Industry dominance
Industry analysts view Amazon's initiatives as a challenge to Nvidia's dominance in the AI hardware market. Patrick Moorhead, CEO of Moor Insights & Strategy, remarked, "This innovation shows Nvidia is no longer the only game in town for AI training."

 

[mullokintyre]

Amazon building the world’s largest supercomputer​

By Adrian Tan |
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced plans to build what it claims will be the world's largest artificial intelligence supercomputer. Dubbed Project Rainier, the supercomputer is expected to be operational by 2025. The announcement was made on 3 December at the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas.

The computer will be powered by AWS's "Trainium" chips, which are custom-designed AI accelerators intended to deliver high performance while reducing costs for AI training and inference. The second-generation Trainium2 chips are expected to quadruple the performance of their predecessors, and are said to provide a cost-effective alternative to Nvidia's GPUs.

Ethical AI
The supercomputer will support the development of advanced AI models for Anthropic, an AI safety and research company in which Amazon has invested US$4bn, with another US$4bn of funding announced on 22 November.

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, both former senior employees of OpenAI. It has developed the "Claude" family of large language models optimised for different applications, with tasks ranging from customer interaction and rapid data processing, to problem-solving, advanced coding and content creation.

Claude implements "Constitutional AI", which is a methodology to align AI systems with human values and ethical principles through a predefined "constitution". This set of rules explicitly defines ethical boundaries, ensuring that the AI generates responses that are helpful, honest and harmless. This approach distinguishes Anthropic from OpenAI, which has faced scrutiny over its profit-oriented structure and transparency regarding safety measures. Claude is primarily trained and deployed on AWS infrastructure (although available on other platforms, such as Google Cloud's Vertex AI).

Amazon Nova
In addition to hardware advancements, AWS announced "Amazon Nova", a new family of generative AI models for enterprise customers, along with a suite of tools that allow businesses to create smaller, cost-effective AI models, manage AI agents, and ensure output accuracy through logical validation.

The Nova models support over 200 languages, and the lineup includes Nova Canvas for image generation and Nova Reel for video generation.
Amazon claims the models are at least 75% less expensive than the best-performing models in their respective classes.

Industry dominance
Industry analysts view Amazon's initiatives as a challenge to Nvidia's dominance in the AI hardware market. Patrick Moorhead, CEO of Moor Insights & Strategy, remarked, "This innovation shows Nvidia is no longer the only game in town for AI training."

Ethical Ai, a complete Oxymoron.
Mick

 

[Dona Ferentes]

Amazon has announced that it had acquired “creative control” of the James Bond franchise from the Broccoli family.

Amazon MGM Studios said on Friday that it had struck a deal with Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson, heirs to the producer Albert Broccoli and longstanding custodians of the Bond films.

Though Broccoli and Wilson are to remain “co-owners” of the franchise, the agreement means that Bond will no longer have a British handler, and will instead be controlled by an American tech giant. Broccoli, 64, and her half-brother Wilson, 83, both hold dual American and British citizenship.

Amazon now holds the casting vote on which actor will be chosen to replace Daniel Craig,

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

The last of the Broccoli involved in Bond is to be applauded as evidenced by generations of children at dinner.

gg

 

[Knobby22]

Amazon has announced that it had acquired “creative control” of the James Bond franchise from the Broccoli family.

Amazon MGM Studios said on Friday that it had struck a deal with Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson, heirs to the producer Albert Broccoli and longstanding custodians of the Bond films.

Though Broccoli and Wilson are to remain “co-owners” of the franchise, the agreement means that Bond will no longer have a British handler, and will instead be controlled by an American tech giant. Broccoli, 64, and her half-brother Wilson, 83, both hold dual American and British citizenship.

Amazon now holds the casting vote on which actor will be chosen to replace Daniel Craig,

Good time to sell. Bond is getting old.
For instance.

 

[ShareSuccess]

Follow us into the lab where AWS designs custom chips​

Annapurna Labs’ unique approach to innovation pushes the limits of computer software and hardware development.
Written by Amazon Staff....Last updated: May 28, 2025

On the outskirts of Austin, Texas, lies Annapurna Labs—a combination of offices, workshops, and even a mini “data center”—where Amazon Web Services (AWS) engineers are designing the future of computing.

Annapurna Labs is a specialist microelectronics company Amazon acquired in 2015. Like its parent company, Annapurna Labs got its start in a household garage, and a lot has changed but the scrappy startup mentality remains. The lab’s specialist engineers, computer scientists, operations and logistics experts, and more—take a hands-on approach to every aspect of developing custom silicon chips and accelerators. No job is too small, even the ones requiring microscopic probes.

We’re giving you a look behind the scenes at Annapurna Labs’ operations, where the team embraces the “organized chaos” of innovation.

Designing with the whole system in mind
The Annapurna Labs office looks like a typical working space with a mix of employees typing at desktops and brainstorming in conference rooms. Many of these employees are at the front line of machine learning acceleration, developing the layers of software that power silicon chips. They make up a critical part of Annapurna’s secret sauce—a system-first mindset.
“Instead of building a chip and then integrating it into a system and writing software to it, we flipped the process on its head,” said Ron Diamant, lead architect. “We first designed the full system and work backwards from that in order to specify the most optimal chip for that system. And this allows us to create a much more tailored chip for the workloads that we’re trying to accelerate.”

Iterating quickly, failing early, and fixing things fast

Past the rows of cubicles are three different labs where the hardware comes into play. Engineers at cable-covered workstations use power tools to build boards and specialized microscopes to view tiny chip components. Dozens of fans keep the equipment (and humans) cool as servers run in the background. Despite its scattered state, everything in the lab has a purpose and serves as a reminder that learning can be messy.

“When you go into the lab and you see equipment everywhere. It’s organized chaos,” said Rami Sinno, director of silicon engineering. “We iterate quickly, we fail early, and we fix it. And this is what allows us to continuously deliver very high-performance, low-cost products to our customers.”

Co-designing software and hardware

Annapurna Labs’ vertically integrated process enables control of the entire stack of components required for machine learning accelerator servers. Both software and hardware engineers collaborate at every stage of development, from chip design to server deployment in AWS data centers.

“As we’re developing the chip, we develop the software in parallel. We use both of them in testing so that we make sure everything’s working well together and we can do trade-off analysis,” said Laura Sharpless, software engineering manager. “Every day I come into the office, I get to solve a new problem. Maybe today we’re working on hardware, physical boards. And tomorrow we’re looking at how do we actually scale the software and support multiple generations really seamlessly to scale faster.”

Testing to ensure peak performance

Annapurna's testing and validation processes are critical to ensuring the reliability and robustness of components for 24/7 operation in AWS data centers. Engineers test all software and hardware components at every level from chip to board to server. The lab consists of stations where engineers use specialized equipment to introduce different variables like functionality, voltage, and temperature.

“Testing significantly cuts down the development time so our software engineers can iterate faster,” said Prashant Pappu, principal hardware engineer, “and hardware engineers can focus on finding issues early on in the cycle.”

Building the world’s most powerful AI computing systems

Prior to the acquisition, Annapurna Labs and AWS worked together on the production of next-generation hardware AWS Nitro and its supporting hypervisor. Just over a decade later, Nitro is essential to every AWS server. The technology is the foundation of EC2 instances, enables AWS to innovate faster, further reduce cost for customers, and deliver increased security. Shortly after joining AWS, Annapurna Labs embarked on Graviton, its second product line. Now in its fourth generation, Graviton gives customers more computing capabilities while reducing their carbon footprint.

Annapurna Labs’ machine learning chips—Inferentia and Trainium—are the third product line. Their names are a direct reflection of their use cases. Customers use Inferentia to run machine learning inference at scale and Trainium to run large-scale training workloads like generative AI and computer vision. Trainium2, the second-generation chip, is an essential part of Annapurna Labs’ development of increasingly powerful AI computing systems like Trainium2 instances and UltraServers.

Amazon is investing $110 million to support AI research at universities using Trainium chips
The Build on Trainium program enables expanded research and training opportunities for advanced AI processing, sparking innovation for the frontier models of the future.

“An UltraServer combines four Trainium2 servers and 64 Trainium2 chips into one server with very fast connections between them,” said Tobias Edler von Koch, principal software engineer. “As machine learning models become too large to be handled definitely by an individual chip, or even by an individual machine, you need to scale out and have multiple servers collaborate.”

Foreseeing the future of computing

Annapurna Labs’ stealthy setup and eager engineers makes it uniquely suited to meet the demand for continuous innovation in the rapid race for AI advancement. Along with the development of its next-generation chips, Annapurna is partnering with AI startup Anthropic to take on its most ambitious challenge yet: building Project Rainier expected to be the world’s largest supercomputer.

“It's so exciting to be in this fast-moving environment, innovating on behalf of customers and working closely with customers to make sure that we are building the right things in the future,” said Gadi Hutt, director of product and customer engineering. "My prediction is the next celebration in 20 years will come much faster because we’re having so much fun.”

To learn more about how and why AWS develops its family of custom chips and accelerators, visit the AWS Silicon Innovation Day page.

 

[ShareSuccess]

CEO Andy Jassy shares 2 ways Amazon is transforming health care—and says there is ‘so much more’ coming​

From One Medical’s offering to same-day prescription deliveries, here’s how Amazon is changing the health care experience for customers.

Written by Amazon Staff
May 22, 2025

During a recent Q&A with shareholders, CEO Andy Jassy discussed how Amazon is working to make significant and meaningful changes to the health care experience for customers. He focused on two health care offerings that are contributing to Amazon’s mission of making customers' lives easier and better: subscriptions to One Medical, which is $9 a month or $99 a year for Prime members, and same-day delivery of prescription medications with Amazon Pharmacy, which Amazon plans to expand this year.
Here's how Jassy said Amazon is helping to transform the health care experience:
We have a mission across every one of our businesses at Amazon to make customers' lives easier and better, every day—and that is absolutely true in the health care space … I’ll just stick with the United States to begin with.
They're not going to believe that we used to have to make a doctor's appointment many weeks in advance, drive 20 minutes to the doctor, park the car, wait in the waiting room for 20 minutes, finally get into an exam room, and wait for 15 minutes for a doctor. The doctor came in for five minutes, then you had to leave the doctor's office and drive 20 minutes to the drug store to pick up whatever your medicine was. People are not going to believe that was the experience, and that is going to very significantly change. And we're trying to be a meaningful part of changing that.
And so you can see that in a couple different areas. If you look at our Amazon One Medical offering, now you have a simple-but-powerful app that has all your medical information in one place. You can talk to medical practitioners via chat or video conference. You can pay by the visit for acute issues, or you can get a subscription for chronic issues or primary care to see a primary care physician and a consistent team.

And when you have that One Medical subscription, you can obviously interact and chat or video conference, but you can also visit one of our many physical clinics in metropolitan areas. You can get appointments, same day or next day, and we also have relationships in every city in which we reside with specialists where you can get in for referrals and appointments on their calendar in very short order. Customers love this experience.
I think that what you see is, instead of doctors coming in and speaking with you for five minutes, they spend considerably more time with their patients, in part because that's the way that we've set up the customer experience, because we know patients want to be able to have time to ask medical practitioners questions.
We've also been inventing on the technology side, where we've used our AWS HealthScribe AI Service to do a lot of the transcription for doctors of summaries so they don't have to spend so much time with their paperwork.


And then on the pharmacy side, I think the team has built a truly outstanding customer experience, and we're hearing that feedback over and over from customers and seeing them vote with their purchases. We offer Same day delivery of prescriptions now to eight cities across the United States, including Los Angeles and New York City, with more coming this year. We've built programs like RxPass, which, for $5 a month for Prime members, gives our Prime members unlimited access to 60 common medications with very fast delivery and 24/7 pharmacy support. We are changing this customer experience that people have had to endure on the pharmacy side for a really long time. We're changing it very significantly. I really encourage you to check it out if you haven't. It's a very different experience from the physical pharmacy experience. It's growing very well.
I'm excited about what we're doing here, but I would also tell you that we have so much more that we're going to deliver for customers over the next couple of years. We're really working to try to help change this customer experience.

 

[ShareSuccess]

7 ways Amazon is thinking big about nuclear energy​

Learn how Amazon is innovating to power our operations more sustainably.

Written by Amazon Staff
Last updated: May 27, 2025

From shopping online and streaming a movie to electrifying vehicles and expanding industrial manufacturing, technology is leading to growing energy needs. Amazon is planning for the future energy needs of our business and customers while remaining committed to our Climate Pledge and becoming a more sustainable company.
One way we’re doing this is by investing in nuclear power, a safe, carbon-free energy source that can be brought online at scale. Over the past year, Amazon has invested more than $1 billion across nuclear energy projects and technologies in the U.S., while also supporting research on topics like nuclear fusion, and more.

How Amazon packages are delivered in densely populated areas like New York City with e-bikes and on foot​

Through alternative delivery models (such as on-foot, Amazon Hub Delivery and e-bikes), Amazon packages reach customers in big cities.
Here are seven ways we’re thinking big about the future of nuclear energy:

1.Advancing small modular reactors

A model of a small modular reactor designed by X-energy.
We’ve invested more than $500 million to help develop Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), including an initial SMR project with Energy Northwest in Washington. SMRs are an advanced kind of nuclear reactor with a smaller physical footprint, allowing them to be built closer to the grid and in more places. They also have faster build times than traditional reactors, helping them to come online sooner. SMRs can help power both Amazon operations and provide new sources of energy for homes, businesses, and more.

2.Ensuring existing nuclear reactors stay online

Keeping existing nuclear energy plants operating is one of the fastest and most affordable ways we can ensure carbon-free energy is available at scale. That’s why we’re partnering with Talen Energy to build a data center campus next to the Susquehanna nuclear facility in Pennsylvania. This agreement can help power our operations and ensures that the nuclear plant has the funding to keep operating, make necessary repairs, and cover relicensing fees—while also making sure these costs aren’t passed down to local energy users. The project also brings economic benefits for local communities, including construction jobs, tax revenue, and other forms of support.

How Amazon is supporting farmers through solar and wind farm investments
How Amazon is supporting farmers through solar and wind farm investments
Amazon’s investments in renewable energy projects combined with agriculture are bringing economic benefits to farmers and new sources of carbon-free energy to the grid.


3.Strengthening U.S. energy independence and AI development

It is important that the U.S. secures its position as a global leader in AI development. To achieve this, we will need more reliable, carbon-free energy to enable these advanced technologies. At the same time, strengthening America’s energy independence and AI leadership are both important ways to support national security. By investing in next-generation nuclear technology and projects, we want to ensure the data centers supporting AI and other technological innovations can operate effectively across the U.S.

4.Creating and preserving jobs

Amazon’s investments in nuclear energy projects are expected to provide an economic boost for the local communities in which they reside. In Washington, the SMR project is expected to support up to 1,000 temporary construction jobs and as many as 100 or more permanent jobs, according to Energy Northwest, a public power operating agency. In Pennsylvania, the data center campus near Talen Energy’s nuclear plant is expected to create construction jobs and bring upgrades to local utility infrastructure. Our investment will also help preserve the existing 900 local jobs that help keep the facility up and running.

5.Investing capital in emerging nuclear technologies

Advancing next-generation nuclear technologies like SMRs requires investments that allow companies to immediately access the funds so they can innovate and grow. Amazon is making this kind of capital investment in X-energy, a leading developer of next-generation SMRs and fuel. This funding will help X-energy scale their operations, create new jobs, and advance more than 5 gigawatts of new nuclear energy projects over the next 15 years.

6.Supporting nuclear research

We’re supporting research that explores the future of nuclear energy. For example, AWS supported a study released by the Clean Air Task Force (CATF) that demonstrates how AI can help us advance nuclear fusion as a new carbon-free energy source. Before the use of cloud computing and AI, fusion's rate of progress was expected to take years, or even decades. CATF’s research finds that AI can fast-forward research, optimize designs, and improve diagnostics, making this solution a reality sooner.

How Amazon packages are delivered in densely populated areas like New York City with e-bikes and on foot
How Amazon packages are delivered in densely populated areas like New York City with e-bikes and on foot
Through alternative delivery models (such as on-foot, Amazon Hub Delivery and e-bikes), Amazon packages reach customers in big cities.

7.Learning and being curious
Investing in new technologies that are still being developed is inherently risky and can come with unknowns. At Amazon, we’re a company of innovators and inventors, and we’re used to taking on big challenges. Whether it’s investing in new carbon-free energy technologies like SMRs or reimagining how our data centers can be powered more sustainably, we’re working on meeting our Climate Pledge commitment, while also creating solutions that will help our society transition to a brighter energy future.

 

[ShareSuccess]

Amazon plans to invest $10 billion in North Carolina to expand cloud computing infrastructure and advance AI innovation​

Planned investment in Richmond County will create hundreds of jobs and support new workforce development training programs and local community projects.

Written by Amazon Staff
June 04, 2025
6 min read

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Key takeaways​

• Amazon plans to invest $10 billion in North Carolina to expand its AI infrastructure, creating 500 new high-skilled jobs and supporting thousands more in the AWS data center supply chain.
• Since 2010, Amazon has invested $12 billion in North Carolina, contributing $13.1 billion to the state's GDP and supporting 24,000 full and part-time jobs plus 26,000 indirect jobs across various facilities.
• Amazon will bring training and education programs to local communities, including data center technician programs, fiber optic fusion splicing workshops, and STEM awareness and learning opportunities for K-12 schools.
• Amazon is launching the Amazon Richmond County Community Fund with a $150,000 commitment for grants up to $10,000 supporting STEM education, sustainability, economic development, workforce development, and community well-being.

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Amazon today announced plans to invest an estimated $10 billion in North Carolina to expand its data center infrastructure to support AI and cloud computing technologies.
This landmark investment is expected to create at least 500 new high-skilled jobs while supporting thousands of other jobs in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) data center supply chain. Generative AI is driving increased demand for advanced cloud infrastructure and compute power, and our investment will support the future of AI from AWS data centers in the Tar Heel State. This deployment of cutting-edge cloud computing infrastructure will strengthen North Carolina’s position as an innovation hub.

The new high-skilled jobs will range from data center engineers and network specialists, to engineering operations managers, security specialists, and many more technical roles. In addition to these direct positions, this planned investment is expected to support thousands of local construction jobs and positions in the data center supply chain, as well as other jobs in the local community.
“Artificial intelligence is changing the way we work and innovate, and I am pleased that North Carolina will stay at the forefront of all that’s ahead as we continue to attract top technology companies like Amazon,” said North Carolina Governor Josh Stein. “Amazon’s investment is among the largest in state history and will bring hundreds of good-paying jobs and an economic boost to Richmond County.”
“Amazon's $10 billion investment in North Carolina underscores our commitment to driving innovation and advancing the future of cloud computing and AI technologies,” said David Zapolsky, Amazon’s chief global affairs and legal officer. “This investment will position North Carolina as a hub for cutting-edge technology, create hundreds of high-skilled jobs, and drive significant economic growth. We look forward to partnering with state and local leaders, local suppliers, and educational institutions to nurture the next generation of talent.”

An AWS technician gives us a tour of a data center in eastern Oregon—see what it's like inside​

Fidel Contreras is a data center technician lead with Amazon Web Services. Follow him and his colleagues on a tour inside a data center and find out what it’s like to work there.
For more than a decade, we have been a driving force behind North Carolina’s economic growth, investing $12 billion in the state since 2010 and contributing $13.1 billion to the state's gross domestic product (GDP). This latest expansion is a testament to the state's thriving business ecosystem and talented workforce, which have enabled us to support 24,000 full- and part-time jobs, as well as more than 26,000 indirect jobs.
This planned investment builds on our track record of investing in infrastructure across North Carolina. We recently announced the opening of a Same-Day Delivery facility in Kannapolis, along with plans for four new last-mile facilities in Jacksonville, Mount Airy, Southern Pines, and Tarboro. These new sites will improve delivery speeds for customers, while creating more than 100 full-time jobs at the Kannapolis facility alone.
We have also made significant investments in renewable energy, including two solar and wind farms. Once fully operational, these projects will generate enough carbon-free energy to power an estimated 76,316 U.S. homes each year. Additionally, we filmed Amazon Original movies and series in North Carolina, including The Summer I Turned Pretty, The Peripheral, and Merv.

Supporting education, skills training, and more​

As part of today’s announcement, we are also making the following commitments to North Carolina communities:
Support for North Carolina community colleges, technical schools, universities, and workforce development organizations to design, develop, and grow training programs and work-based learning opportunities that prepare job seekers for high-demand career pathways in the growing field of data center construction and operations, as well as the broadband expansion industry. This training and support will include upgrades to facilities and equipment to empower hands-on learning; faculty training from industry subject matter experts; and curricular content to link programs of study to industry standards and best practices. This includes programs such as:

• Data Center Operations and Fiber Optic Technician Programs, bringing industry experts and state-of-the-art equipment to train local education institutions to train the next generation of North Carolina Data Center operators.
• Fiber Optic Fusion Splicing Workshops, two-day certificate courses implemented at local community colleges, technical schools, and universities that train individuals in new fusion splicing (the welding together of fiber optical cables) techniques and equipment, then connect these learners to fiber-broadband employers.
• Information Infrastructure Workshops for Educators, a one-day workshop to help education and workforce leaders better understand the physical layer of cloud computing and our information economy, and the many different careers that are available.
• AWS Information Infrastructure Pre-Apprenticeship ("I2PA"), a paid pre-apprenticeship designed for students and job seekers to prepare for entry into any one of several careers that build, connect, power, and operate the infrastructure of the information economy. Those who successfully complete the program will earn industry-recognized credentials and connections to AWS or one of our contractors.

5 awesome health benefits many Amazon employees can start using on their first day​

For many employees, Amazon offers health care starting on day one of employment, along with mental health and well-being resources, cancer support, and 24/7 access to medical advice.
Support for STEM awareness and learning opportunities for K-12 school systems, including:

• We Build it Better, a set of industry-designed curricular experiences and resources that engage middle school and older students in a work-like STEM environment stocked with industry-grade tools.
• We Will Build it Better, a career awareness program for elementary classrooms to engage students in a work-like STEAM environment, complete with an array of industry-grade hand tools and technology.
• Think Big Experiences, which inspire young people to pursue careers in technology.

Support for education institutions and independent learners with free, ready-to-learn cloud computing curriculum that works backward from employer demand for specific skills and roles in cloud support, software development, and data integration, among other in-demand cloud computing skills. This builds on the AWS commitment to provide free cloud skills training to 29 million people globally.
To help all young people realize their potential as creators, thinkers, and builders, we launched Amazon Future Engineer. This year, we named 8 North Carolina high school seniors as Amazon Future Engineer Scholarship recipients. Each student will receive up to $40,000 over four years to pursue degrees in computer science or engineering, plus a paid internship opportunity at Amazon after their first year of college.

Empowering local communities​

We are committed to being good neighbors in the communities where we build and operate. We invest in these communities by supporting local jobs, generating economic growth, providing skills training and education, and unlocking opportunities for local businesses and suppliers.
Building upon our commitment to Richmond County and the surrounding area, we are launching the Amazon Richmond County Community Fund, a grant program aimed at supporting initiatives focused on key themes: STEM education; sustainability and environment; economic development; future workforce development; and homelessness, hunger, health, and well-being. Applications are now open and will close on July 23, 2025.
We’re committing $150,000 to this fund, which will be managed and administered by the nonprofit ChangeX. The program is open to individuals, local community groups, schools, nonprofits, and other organizations across Richmond County and surrounding communities. Applicants can apply for grants of up to $10,000 for new or existing community projects that align with at least one of the themes outlined by the fund. As part of our long-term community investment plan, the Community Fund marks the first steps through which we will collaborate with local partners to implement high-impact programs aimed at fostering the sustained growth and prosperity of the county.

Watch: AWS series shows what it’s like having data centers in your community​

AWS docuseries shares stories of local people in eastern Oregon whose lives are being changed for the better by the cloud—in unexpected ways.
We choose locations for our data center infrastructure that provide robust utility infrastructure, a skilled workforce, and opportunities to support public services through increased tax revenue. Ultimately, we are committed to making a positive impact in North Carolina through job creation, educational partnerships, sustainability initiatives, and community reinvestment.

 

[ShareSuccess]

Everything you need to know about Project Kuiper, Amazon’s satellite broadband network​

Written by Thomas Kohnstamm
Last updated: June 03, 2025
4 min read
Lee este artículo en español.
Project Kuiper is Amazon’s initiative to provide fast, reliable broadband to customers and communities around the world, including in places that are currently unserved or underserved by traditional internet and communications options. To achieve this goal, Amazon will deploy thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) linked to a global network of antennas, fiber, and internet connection points on the ground.
We’re often asked about the scope of Project Kuiper and the technology behind it. Here we answer 15 common questions:
1.
Who will Project Kuiper help connect?
Billions of people around the world don’t have reliable access to broadband. Poor connectivity means limited access to modern communications, education, health services, and other important resources, which can create an economic disadvantage for unserved and underserved communities. We started Project Kuiper to help bridge that digital divide, but our network is designed to serve a wide range of customers, including schools, hospitals, businesses, government agencies, and others operating in places without reliable connectivity or that need more flexible, resilient communications capabilities. We plan to deploy service to most countries around the globe, including hard-to-reach locations.
2.
Why is Amazon taking this on?
You don’t have to travel far from major cities to lose internet connectivity—it can happen within a 60-minute drive from Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle. Cost, complexity, and geography can make it difficult to install traditional, ground-based fiber and wireless connectivity solutions in these areas.
Satellite broadband can fill many of those coverage gaps, but developing and deploying satellite technology requires significant innovation and investment. Amazon has the people and resources required to deploy and operate global satellite broadband services, and we feel a responsibility to use our success and scale to help bridge the digital divide.
3.
Is Project Kuiper part of Blue Origin?
No. Project Kuiper is an Amazon initiative, part of the same Devices and Services division responsible for Kindle, Echo, Fire TV, eero, Ring, and other tech devices. Blue Origin is a separate company founded by Jeff Bezos.
4.
When did Amazon start Project Kuiper?
Amazon began research and development on Project Kuiper in 2018. In July 2020, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted Amazon a license to deploy and operate Project Kuiper satellites.
5.
When will Project Kuiper service be available?
Project Kuiper is a long-term initiative. We launched our first two prototype satellites in October 2023, and began a full-scale deployment of our satellite constellation in April 2025 with the launch of our first 27 production satellites. We expect to begin delivering service to customers in late 2025.
6.
Why is it called Project Kuiper?

Project Kuiper started off as an internal code name for the program—and it stuck. The name refers to the Kuiper Belt, a region of the solar system that exists beyond the eight major planets. The Kuiper Belt itself is named after the late Dutch astronomer Gerard Kuiper, who is considered by many to be the father of modern planetary science.
7.
Where is Project Kuiper based?
Project Kuiper is headquartered in Redmond, Washington, where we conduct primary research and development. Our satellite production facility in Kirkland, Washington, gives us manufacturing capacity to build up to five satellites per day. Additionally, our satellite processing facility at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, is where we prepare and integrate Kuiper satellites with rockets from Blue Origin, SpaceX, and United Launch Alliance ahead of launches.
8.
How many people work on Project Kuiper?
Amazon has a team of thousands of world-class engineers, programmers, and support personnel helping deliver on the vision for Project Kuiper. Team members joined from many different industries, such as space and aerospace, wireless technology, and computer networking. They work out of our labs in Redmond and Kirkland in Washington state, as well as in cities across the U.S., like New York City, Austin, Denver, San Diego, and Washington, D.C., and internationally.
9.
What kinds of technologies does Project Kuiper use?
Project Kuiper has three main parts: ground infrastructure, satellites, and customer terminals. Amazon’s ground infrastructure includes gateway antennas that securely send and receive customer data to and from satellites, along with telemetry, tracking, and control (TT&C) antennas that keep the satellites properly operating. Global networking connects those gateway antennas to the internet, public cloud, or private networks.
Satellites make up the second part of the project. They operate in low Earth orbit (LEO) and relay data traffic to and from our gateway antennas and customers. Lastly, customer terminals are the technology that Project Kuiper customers use to receive internet service. The terminals combine antennas and processors into a single, compact system to deliver connectivity.
10.
How many satellites will Project Kuiper have?
Project Kuiper’s initial satellite constellation design includes 3,232 satellites. The term “constellation” refers to a group of similar satellites working together with tightly coordinated movements to achieve a common purpose—in this case, providing reliable broadband coverage.
11.
What is low Earth orbit (LEO)?

Low Earth orbit is an area of space that extends up to 2,000 kilometers (about 1,243 miles) above Earth. Project Kuiper satellites will orbit between 590 and 630 kilometers (about 367 and 392 miles). Our satellites’ proximity to the surface of the Earth reduce latency for customers, making Project Kuiper connectivity effective for uses like video calls, gaming, and high-definition streaming.
12.
How do the satellites get into space?
Amazon works with commercial launch providers to send Project Kuiper satellites into space. We’ve secured more than 80 launches from Arianespace, Blue Origin, SpaceX, and ULA to deploy our initial satellite constellation. Together, these agreements represent the largest commercial procurement of launch vehicles in history.
13.
Is it safe to have so many satellites in space?
Space safety and sustainability are core tenets of Project Kuiper and have been from the initiative’s inception. Those tenets have influenced everything from the overall architecture of Project Kuiper’s satellite system to the design of the satellites themselves and the way we engage external stakeholders like scientists and other space operators.
14.
How fast will Project Kuiper internet be?

We’re designing the system to balance performance and affordability, and we plan to provide choice and flexibility by offering a range of options for customers. Our standard customer terminal delivers downlink speeds up to 400 megabits per second (Mbps); our largest model, which is intended for enterprise, government, and telecommunications applications, delivers up to 1 gigabit per second (Gbps); and our ultra-compact model delivers up to 100 Mbps.
15.
How much will Project Kuiper service cost?
We haven't announced pricing details yet, but affordability is a key principle of Project Kuiper. Amazon has a longstanding commitment to low prices, and lots of experience building popular, low-cost devices like Echo Dot and Fire TV Stick. We’re applying a similar approach with Project Kuiper. We also know customer needs will vary quite a bit around the world, and our service offerings will vary from country to country with the right pricing and service for customers in each region.

 

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Amazon investing AU$20 billion to expand data center infrastructure in Australia and strengthen the nation’s AI future​

The largest global technology investment announcement in Australia’s history will help build national AI capability and position Australia as a global AI and technology leader.

1. AWS
2. AWS Data Centers
3. Artificial Intelligence
4. Sustainability
5. Upskilling

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Written by Amazon Staff
June 14, 2025
4 min read

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Key takeaways​

• Amazon plans to invest AU$20 billion to expand data center infrastructure by 2029, strengthening Australia's cloud and AI capabilities.
• Three new solar farms in Victoria and Queensland will support the infrastructure expansion.
• AWS has trained 400,000+ people in Australia since 2017 to develop digital skills, and will continue to support generative AI programs like AWS AI Spring Australia and AWS Generative AI Accelerator.

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Amazon today announced plans to invest a new total of AU$20 billion from 2025 to 2029 to expand, operate, and maintain its data center infrastructure in Australia. The country’s largest publicly-announced global technology investment will support the strong growth in customer demand for cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI), accelerating AI adoption and capability, and the continued modernization of Australian organizations of all sizes.

The planned investment supports the Australian government's vision to improve productivity and grow the economy through AI innovation. It puts the latest cloud and AI capabilities into the hands of hundreds of thousands of Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers and partners to drive innovation at scale, while ensuring local data residency and regulatory requirements are met. According to the Australian Government’s Department of Industry, Science and Resources, AI and automation are expected to contribute up to AU$600 billion annually to Australia’s GDP by 2030.

An AWS technician gives us a tour of a data center in eastern Oregon—see what it's like inside​

Fidel Contreras is a data center technician lead with AWS. Follow him and his colleagues on a tour inside a data center and find out what it’s like to work there.

Building on more than a decade of infrastructure investments​

AWS’s commitment to Australia began in 2012 with the opening of the AWS Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region. In 2023, AWS launched the AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region and the country’s first AWS Local Zones in Perth. In April 2024, AWS launched Amazon Bedrock, AWS’s fully managed generative AI service, in the AWS Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region, and in July 2024, the Australian Government announced a partnership with AWS to provide a "Top Secret" AWS Cloud to deliver cloud innovation in national security and defense, and enhance the nation's defense and intelligence capabilities.

Three new renewable energy projects to support infrastructure expansion​

To support the expanded local cloud infrastructure, Amazon is investing in three new solar farms in Victoria and Queensland. European Energy will deliver and operate the new projects, with Amazon committing to purchase a combined capacity of more than 170-megawatts (MW) across the three solar farms. Amazon already invests in eight solar and wind projects across New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria, which are helping power Amazon’s Australian operations, including Amazon data centers and fulfilment centers. Once all 11 renewable energy projects are operational, they are estimated to generate more than 1.4 million megawatt hours of carbon-free energy annually, or enough to power about 290,000 Australian homes each year.

How Amazon is making its data centers even more sustainable​

Through our re:Cycle Reverse Logistics hub, we're diverting more than 99% of decommissioned hardware from landfills.
From 2020 to 2022, Amazon invested an estimated AU$467 million in renewable energy projects in Australia. In 2024, Amazon was the third-largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in Australia, and remains the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy globally. According to a study by Accenture, Australian organizations migrating compute-heavy AI workloads to AWS can reduce carbon emissions by up to 94% compared with on-premises data centers, due to efficiencies in AWS’s infrastructure hardware, power, and cooling, and carbon-free energy procurement.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (left) and Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman (right) walk together after meeting in the Amazon Spheres in Seattle, Saturday, June 14, 2025.
The Honourable Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister of Australia said, “I am pleased to join Matt Garman to announce AWS’s investment of AU$20 billion over five years to further develop and expand its data centers in Sydney and Melbourne. This is the largest investment our country has seen from a global technology provider, and is an exciting opportunity for Australia to build AI capability using secure, resilient infrastructure. This is exactly the kind of economic investment in our nation that we want to see, and creates opportunities for continued innovation and growth. The investment will generate economic opportunity for Australians, including skilled jobs and infrastructure that can support complex AI and supercomputing applications.”
Matt Garman, CEO of AWS said, "This planned investment deepens our long-term commitment to supporting the growth and development of Australian organizations of all sizes and helping them harness the enormous opportunity that generative AI offers. We’re proud to be expanding our world-class data center infrastructure, bringing more renewable energy projects online, and supporting the country’s vision to be a global AI leader. AI is a once-in-a-generation transformation, and Amazon is pleased to be empowering all Australians to innovate at scale through this investment.”

Commitment to bolstering Australia's digital and AI capability and skills​

The planned investment follows the launch of AWS AI Spring Australia, a comprehensive set of programs designed to accelerate AI adoption and capability across the nation. This flagship initiative will provide targeted support across different sectors and industries. Initial programs include the AWS Generative AI Accelerator, a program designed to grow early-stage generative AI startups, and AWS AI Launchpad, a program to help Australian enterprises begin and accelerate their generative AI journey. Through AI Spring Australia, AWS will leverage its world-class infrastructure, deep AI expertise, and security with guardrails to help boost local productivity while unlocking new product and service innovation.

AWS doubles down on helping Australian startups accelerate AI innovation​

Data reveals that 81% of Australian startups are leveraging AI in business; AWS to introduce new AI Spring initiative to drive AI capability across Australia
Since 2017, AWS has trained more than 400,000 people across Australia, empowering individuals to accelerate their careers and contribute to the nation's digital transformation and economy. Amazon has a deep commitment to upskilling people in Australia through a combination of local and global skills programs. These include AWS’s Work-Based Learning Program, a 12-month training program for data center operations, and Amazon’s AI Ready initiative, launched with a goal to provide free AI skills training to two million people globally by 2025. AWS will continue to collaborate with educational institutions, industry partners, and the government to further develop comprehensive training programs that prepare Australians for the jobs of the future.

How AWS is helping its local customers leverage generative AI in 2025​

Amazon Web Services (AWS) announces the availability of Amazon Nova models in the AWS Sydney Region, and shares three key ways it is helping Australian organisations leverage generative artificial intelligence (AI) workloads
AWS is used by hundreds of thousands of organizations in Australia. This encompasses enterprise, public sector, and startup customers, as well as AWS partners, many leveraging AWS’s AI and generative AI services to transform their operations and drive growth. They include: 6pillars.ai, ANZ Bank, Atlassian, Australian Epilepsy Project, Australian Stroke Alliance, Canva, Commonwealth Bank, CyberCX, DNX Solutions, IxCeed, Mantalus, Mantel Group, National Australia Bank, nib Group, Relevance AI, Sekuro, Splash Music, Swimming Australia, Telstra, Optus, V2 AI, and Westpac.

 

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Message from CEO Andy Jassy: Some thoughts on Generative AI​

Written by Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon
June 17, 2025
5 min read
The message below was shared with Amazon employees earlier today.

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Today, in virtually every corner of the company, we’re using Generative AI to make customers lives better and easier. What started as deep conviction that every customer experience would be reinvented using AI, and that altogether new experiences we’ve only dreamed of would become possible, is rapidly becoming reality. Technologies like Generative AI are rare; they come about once-in-a-lifetime, and completely change what’s possible for customers and businesses. So, we are investing quite expansively, and, the progress we are making is evident.

You can see it in what we're rolling out in Alexa+, our next generation Alexa personal assistant that's meaningfully smarter, more capable, and is the first personal assistant that can take significant actions for customers on top of providing intelligent answers to virtually any question.

You can see it with our AI shopping assistant that’s being used by tens of millions of customers around the world to discover new products and make more informed purchase decisions.

You can see it in an increasing array of shopping features like “Lens” (very cool to be able to take a picture of an item and have it pull up the shopping result), “Buy for Me” (where I can ask our shopping agent to buy an item on another merchant’s website for me), or Recommended Size (where we can predict the right size for you based on prior purchases and how different apparel brands run fit-wise relative to each other).

You can see it in how we're helping our independent sellers more easily create new product detail pages or get advice on how to be even more effective as a seller in our marketplace. Nearly half a million selling partners are using these services, and the listings they’re creating are measurably better.

You can see it in Advertising where we’ve built a suite of AI tools that make it easier for brands to plan, onboard, create and optimize campaigns. In Q1 alone, over 50K advertisers used these capabilities.

And, you can see it in what we’re delivering in AWS for builders, whether it’s custom silicon (Trainium2) to provide better price-performance on model-training and inference, services that make it much easier to build Foundation Models (SageMaker), or leverage leading frontier models and do GenAI inference at scale (Bedrock), our own frontier model (Nova) to give customers leading intelligence at lower latency and cost, or services to make it much easier for developers to write code (Q and QCLI).

We’re also using Generative AI broadly across our internal operations. In our fulfillment network, we’re using AI to improve inventory placement, demand forecasting, and the efficiency of our robots—all of which have improved cost to serve and delivery speed. We’ve rebuilt our Customer Service Chatbot with GenAI, providing an even better experience than we’d had before. And, we’re assembling more intelligent and compelling product detail pages from leveraging GenAI.

I could go on, but you get the idea.
While we’ve made a lot of progress, we’re still at the relative beginning. There are a few reasons we believe this and want to go even faster.
First, we have strong conviction that AI agents will change how we all work and live. Think of agents as software systems that use AI to perform tasks on behalf of users or other systems. Agents let you tell them what you want (often in natural language), and do things like scour the web (and various data sources) and summarize results, engage in deep research, write code, find anomalies, highlight interesting insights, translate language and code into other variants, and automate a lot of tasks that consume our time. There will be billions of these agents, across every company and in every imaginable field. There will also be agents that routinely do things for you outside of work, from shopping to travel to daily chores and tasks. Many of these agents have yet to be built, but make no mistake, they’re coming, and coming fast.

Second, and what makes this agentic future so compelling for Amazon, is that these agents are going to change the scope and speed at which we can innovate for customers. Agents will allow us to start almost everything from a more advanced starting point. We’ll be able to focus less on rote work and more on thinking strategically about how to improve customer experiences and invent new ones. Agents will be teammates that we can call on at various stages of our work, and that will get wiser and more helpful with more experience. If we build and leverage the right agents, it’s going to rapidly accelerate our ability to make customers lives easier and better every day, and it’s going to make our jobs even more exciting and fun than they are today.

And third, we’re going to keep pushing to operate like the world’s largest start-up-- customer-obsessed, inventive, fast-moving, lean, scrappy, and full of missionaries trying to build something better for customers and a business that outlasts us all. You will continue to see steam and I take actions to help us move faster, have more ownership, and invent more easily. AI will be a substantial catalyst here.
Today, we have over 1,000 Generative AI services and applications in progress or built, but at our scale, that’s a small fraction of what we will ultimately build. We’re going to lean in further in the coming months. We’re going to make it much easier to build agents, and then build (or partner) on several new agents across all of our business units and G&A areas.

As we roll out more Generative AI and agents, it should change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs. It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.

As we go through this transformation together, be curious about AI, educate yourself, attend workshops and take trainings, use and experiment with AI whenever you can, participate in your team’s brainstorms to figure out how to invent for our customers more quickly and expansively, and how to get more done with scrappier teams. When I first started at Amazon in 1997 as an Assistant Product Manager, I worked on leaner teams that got a lot done quickly and where I could have substantial impact. We didn’t have tools resembling anything like Generative AI, but we had broad remits, high ambition, and saw the opportunity to improve (and invent) so many customer experiences. Fast forward 28 years and the most transformative technology since the Internet is here. Those who embrace this change, become conversant in AI, help us build and improve our AI capabilities internally and deliver for customers, will be well-positioned to have high impact and help us reinvent the company.

There's so much more to come with Generative AI. I'm energized by our progress, excited about our plans ahead, and looking forward to partnering with you all as we change what’s possible for our customers, partners, and how we work.

Andy

 

[Dona Ferentes]

Amazon investing AU$20 billion to expand data center infrastructure in Australia and strengthen the nation’s AI future​

who's paying for the grid security?

 

[ShareSuccess]

who's paying for the grid security?

I Don't Know....Why Don't You Phone Andy or Anthony or ha ha

 

[Dona Ferentes]

I Don't Know....Why Don't You Phone Andy or Anthony or ha ha

why don't you

 

[ShareSuccess]

why don't you

why don't you

i've just sent a Message off to andy, hopefully we will get an answer to your question

 

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Meet Project Rainier, Amazon’s one-of-a-kind machine ushering in the next generation of AI​

Our new AI “compute cluster” will connect hundreds of thousands of Trainium2 chips across the U.S.

Written by Kirsteen Rodger
June 24, 2025

If you’re lucky enough to be in Seattle on a clear, sunny day, you’ll likely overhear a local say, “the mountain is out.” They’re referring to Mount Rainier, the 14,410-foot (4,392-meter) stratovolcano that towers above the surrounding terrain.

Rainier’s commanding presence explains why Amazon Web Services (AWS) borrowed its name for a project that similarly dwarfs any comparable endeavor: the creation of what’s expected to be the world’s most powerful computer for training artificial intelligence (AI) models.
Project Rainier, announced at the end of last year and now well underway, is one of the company’s most ambitious undertakings to date. It’s a massive, one-of-its-kind machine designed to usher in the next generation of AI.

Spread across multiple data centers in the U.S., the sheer size of the project is unlike anything AWS has ever attempted.

A mountain of compute​

AWS customer AI safety and research company Anthropic will use this brand-new “AI compute cluster” to build and deploy future versions of its leading AI model, Claude.

“Rainier will provide five times more computing power compared to Anthropic’s current largest training cluster,” said Gadi Hutt, director of product and customer engineering at Annapurna Labs, the specialist chips arm of AWS responsible for designing and building the hardware that will power the project.

“For a frontier model like Claude, the more compute you put into training it, the smarter and more accurate it will be,” said Hutt. “We’re building computational power at a scale that’s never been seen before and we’re doing it with unprecedented speed and agility.”

Chips chips chips​

To deliver on that mission, Project Rainier is designed as a massive “EC2 UltraCluster of Trainium2 UltraServers.” The first part refers to Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), an AWS service that lets customers rent virtual computers in the cloud rather than buying and maintaining their own physical servers.

The more interesting bit is Trainium2, a custom-designed AWS computer chip built specifically for training AI systems. Unlike the general-purpose chips in your laptop or phone, Trainium2 is specialized for processing the enormous amounts of data required to teach AI models how to complete all manner of different and increasingly complex tasks—fast.

To put the power of Trainium2 in context: a single chip is capable of completing trillions of calculations a second. If, understandably, that’s a little hard to visualize: consider that it would take one person more than 31,700 years to count to one trillion. A task that would require millennia for a human to complete can be done in the blink of an eye with Trainium2.

From traditional to ultra​

Impressive, yes. But Project Rainier doesn’t just use one, or even a few, chips. This is where the UltraServers and UltraClusters come in.

Traditionally, servers in a data center operate independently. If and when they need to share information, that data has to travel through external network switches. This introduces latency (i.e, delay), which is not ideal at such large scale.

AWS’s answer to this problem is the UltraServer. A new type of compute solution, an UltraServer combines four physical Trainium2 servers, each with 16 Trainium2 chips. They communicate via specialized high-speed connections called “NeuronLinks.” Identifiable by their distinctive blue cables, NeuronLinks are like dedicated express lanes, allowing data to move much faster within the system and significantly accelerating complex calculations across all 64 chips.

When you connect tens of thousands of these UltraServers and point them all at the same problem, you get Project Rainier—a mega “UltraCluster.”

This is also where you start to understand why Hutt affectionately refers to Rainier as a “friendly giant.”

No room for failure​

Communication between components happens at two critical levels: the NeuronLinks provide high-bandwidth connections within UltraServers, while Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) networking technology (identified by its yellow cables) connects UltraServers inside and across data centers. This two-tier approach maximizes speed where it's most needed while maintaining the flexibility to scale across multiple data center buildings.

So far, so good—but operating and maintaining such an enormous computer is not without its challenges. To ensure all of that gigantic capacity is available to customers, reliability is paramount. That’s where the company’s approach to hardware and software development really comes to the fore.

Unlike most other cloud providers, AWS builds its own hardware, and in doing so, can control every aspect of the technology stack, from a chip’s tiniest components, to the software that runs on it, to the complete design of the data center itself.

Controlling the stack​

This kind of vertical integration is one part of what gives AWS such an advantage in the race to accelerate machine learning and reduce cost barriers to making AI more accessible.

“When you know the full picture, from the chip all the way to the software, to the servers themselves, then you can make optimizations where it makes the most sense,” said Annapurna Labs director of engineering Rami Sinno.

“Sometimes the best solution might be redesigning how power is delivered to the servers, or rewriting the software that coordinates everything. Or it might be doing all of this at once. Because we have an overview of everything, at every level, we can troubleshoot rapidly and innovate much, much faster.”

Sustainability at scale​

“The team that engineers our data centers—from rack layouts to electrical distribution to cooling techniques—is continuously increasing energy efficiency,” said Hutt. “Regardless of the scale AWS operates at, we always keep our sustainability goals front of mind.”

When it comes to carbon-free use in data centers, all of the electricity consumed by Amazon’s operations, including its data centers, was matched with 100% renewable energy resources in 2023.

The company is investing billions of dollars in nuclear power and battery storage, and in financing large-scale renewable energy projects around the world to power its operations. In fact, for the past five years Amazon has been the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the world. The company is still on a path to be net-zero carbon by 2040. This goal remains unchanged by the addition of Project Rainier, and its continued worldwide growth in general.

Last year AWS announced it would be rolling out new data center components that combine advances in power, cooling, and hardware, not only for data centers it’s currently building, but also in existing facilities. New data center components are projected to reduce mechanical energy consumption by up to 46% and reduce embodied carbon in the concrete used by 35%.

The new sites the company is constructing to support Project Rainier and beyond will include a variety of upgrades for energy efficiency and sustainability.

These will have a strong focus on water stewardship. AWS engineers its facilities to use as little water as possible, and where possible none at all. One way it does this is by eliminating cooling water use in many of its facilities for most of the year, instead relying on outside air.

For example, data centers in St. Joseph County, Indiana—one of the Project Rainier sites—will maximize the use of outside air for cooling. From October to March the data centers won’t use any water for cooling at all, while on an average day from April to September they’ll only use cooling water for a few hours per day.

Thanks to engineering innovations like this, AWS leads the industry in water efficiency. Based on findings from a recent Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report looking at the data center industry’s water usage efficiency, the industry standard measure of how efficiently water is used inside data centers is 0.375 liters of water per kilowatt-hour. At 0.15 liters of water per kilowatt hour, AWS’s rate is more than twice as good as than the industry average. It’s also a 40% improvement since 2021.

The future of AI​

Project Rainier doesn’t just push technical boundaries—it represents a fundamental shift in what's possible with AI. And the implications go much further than making Claude an infinitely more sophisticated model.

Project Rainier is now a template for deploying the kind of raw computational power that will allow AI to tackle challenges that have long resisted human solution, enabling breakthroughs across everything from medicine to climate science.