New York
\n CNN
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n For Silicon Valley giants, getting ahead in the artificial intelligence race requires more than building the biggest, most capable models; they\u2019re also competing to get third-party developers to build new applications based on their technology.\n <\/p>\n
\n Now, Meta is teaming up with Amazon\u2019s cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services, on an initiative designed to do just that.\n <\/p>\n
\n The program will provide six months of technical support from both companies\u2019 engineers and $200,000 in AWS cloud computing credits each to 30 US startups looking to build AI tools on Meta\u2019s Llama AI model. The partnership is set to be unveiled at AWS Summit in New York City on Wednesday.\n <\/p>\n
\n For Meta, the project could be a boost at a time when CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pouring enormous resources into his ambition to become a top player in the AI space. The company last month announced the creation of a new AI super intelligence team<\/a>, after recruiting leading researchers away from competitors with massive pay packages<\/a>. Meta also invested $14.3 billion into AI startup Scale, which included the hiring of its founder and CEO, Alexandr Wang, and several other top employees.\n <\/p>\n \n And Amazon\u2019s investment, worth more than $6 million in total, could pay off if the startups continue using AWS\u2019s service to access the AI system after the six months. While Amazon has its own large language models, AWS\u2019s AI strategy has been to help companies access any model \u2014 or multiple \u2014 along with the intense computing power needed to run them.\n <\/p>\n \n Early-stage startups can apply to the program and will be selected later this summer based on the \u201cpotential impact of the proposed solutions and the technical ability\u201d of their teams, AWS and Meta said in a statement.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe have a long-standing relationship and partnership with Meta, and what we\u2019re aiming to do here with the Llama collaboration is really empower founders to build transformative AI using Llama models,\u201d AWS Vice President and Global Head of Startups and Venture Capital Jon Jones told CNN exclusively ahead of the announcement.\n <\/p>\n \n He added that AWS customers are already using Llama to, for example, create AI customer relationship management tools for auto dealerships or financial technology tools.\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n \n At the heart of the Meta-AWS partnership is a push to support Llama, a leading open-source AI model, meaning the code behind the technology is publicly available \u2014 unlike proprietary or \u201cclosed-source\u201d models like OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT and Anthropic\u2019s Claude.\n <\/p>\n \n There\u2019s an industry debate over the benefits of open versus closed-source AI models. It goes something like this: Companies on Team Closed Source say they\u2019ll retain more control over how their technology is used, and it\u2019s a whole lot easier to build a business when your rivals don\u2019t know exactly how your systems work. Team Open Source says potentially transformative AI technology should be available for anyone to use and build on to democratize its benefits.\n <\/p>\n