Amazon may be developing its own AI chips

Amazon has begun work on creating its own custom-made AI processors to power its Echo devices, reports have indicated, in order to decrease their reliance on the cloud. The addition of custom chips is intended to speed up the response times of Alexa, the company's AI assistant, a person familiar with the company's plans told The Information. At present, when users ask Alexa a question, the voice data is sent to Amazon's cloud to be analysed, interpreted and acted upon, whereas having dedicated silicon on the device allows much of that computation to be done locally. According to The Information, the e-tailer has nearly 450 employees with experience in the field of processor design, with many joining through a series of acquisitions including that of chip manufacturer Annapurna Labs for $350 million three years ago. The AI boom has sparked something of an arms race, with companies competing to develop specialised chips for performing the intensive workloads required for machine learning.