Why Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman Is Playing the Long Game on AI

Matt Garman took the helm at Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud computing arm of the U.S. tech giant, in June, but he joined the business around 19 years ago as an intern. He went on to become AWS's first product manager and helped to build and launch many of its core services, before eventually becoming the CEO last year. Like many other tech companies, AWS, which is Amazon's most profitable unit, is betting big on AI. In April 2023, the company launched Amazon Bedrock, which gives cloud customers access to foundation models built by AI companies including Anthropic and Mistral. At its re:Invent conference in Las Vegas in December, the AWS made a series of announcements, including a new generation of foundation AI models, called Nova. It also said that it's building one of the world's most powerful AI supercomputers with Anthropic, which it has a strategic partnership with, using a giant cluster of AWS's Trainium 2 training chips. TIME spoke with Garman a few days after the re:Invent conference, about his AI ambitions, how he's thinking about ensuring the technology is safe, and how the company is balancing its energy needs with its emissions targets.