Meta signs 'multi-billion dollar' deal with Amazon to use AI chips

Amazon and Meta Platforms have entered into an agreement under which the owner of Facebook and Instagram will rent hundreds of thousands of universal chips from Amazon for its projects in the field of artificial intelligence, according to a release on Meta's website. Financial details of the deal the parties do not name, but Bloomberg writes: we are talking about a multi-billion dollar agreement.

The multi-year deal gives Meta access to Amazon Web Services' (AWS) Graviton line of processors, said Nafea Bshara, vice president of Amazon and co-founder of the company's Annapurna Labs division - which develops chips for Amazon."It's not just about chips - we're giving customers the infrastructure foundation as well as data services to build AI that understands, anticipates and scales to billions of people around the world," Bshara remarked, his words quoted in a company release.

Artificial intelligence models capable of generating text or performing logical reasoning are typically built using Nvidia GPUs, Bloomberg notes. However, AI developers can use general-purpose CPUs such as Graviton for related tasks, including inferencing - generating responses to queries after the model has been trained, Bloomberg explains.

"GPUs are useless if there are no CPUs around," Bshara said.

Meta shares are adding 0.4% in the April 24 premarket, while Amazon's securities are up 1.6%.

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