Amazon said it has offered over US$6 billion in credits to startups in the past decade.

costs of using major AI models, the company told Reuters in an interview, as it looks to boost the
market share of its AI platform Bedrock.

Amazon offers free credits for startups to use AI models including Anthropic
In a move to attract startup customers, Amazon now allows its cloud credits to cover the use of
models from other providers including Anthropic, Meta, Mistral AI, and Cohere.

"This is another gift that we're making back to the startup ecosystem, in exchange for what we
hope is startups continue to choose AWS as their first stop," said Howard Wright, vice president
and global head of startups at AWS.

The move followed Amazon's now-completed US$4 billion ($6.1 billion) investment in
Anthropic in convertible notes.

As part of the deal, Anthropic will use AWS as its primary cloud provider, and Trainium and
Inferentia chips to build and train its models.

Wright said Amazon's free credit will contribute to revenue of Anthropic, one of the most
popular models on Bedrock.

"That's part of the ecosystem building. We are unapologetic about that," he said, adding that
AWS offers a wide range of choices and security to startups.

In a partnership with Y Combinator, it's offering US$500,000 in credits for the latest cohort
launched in January, which can be used on AI models and Amazon's chips.

The cost of using AI, based on usage, could pile up for startups.
Amazon is not alone among major cloud providers in providing free credits to lure AI startups.
Microsoft Azure gives out credits that can be used for OpenAI's models, while Google's cloud
credit can be applied for over 130 models on Vertex AI.

Big tech's investments in AI startups have drawn scrutiny from regulators, as the US Federal
Trade Commission (FTC) opened an inquiry on Microsoft's backing of OpenAI, as well as
Google and Amazon's investment in Anthropic.