Amazon bets that by making AI its own group, it can outpace Microsoft and Google

In today's episode of "Amazon Kremlinology," AWS has put out a press release that shows a significant shuffle of one of AWS's most storied leaders.

Two weeks after their announcement of Nova 2 models at AWS re:Invent ("where hope goes to the desert to die"), SVP of Utility Computing Peter DeSantis is taking two of his teams from AWS, putting them into SVP of Doesn't-Work-At-Amazon-As-Of-Next-Month Rohit Prasad's old org, and managing the whole thing as a cohesive unit called "AGI." This unit will report directly to Andy Jassy, Amazon's Lead Product Marketer for GenAI (and also CEO).

The two things Peter's taking along with him are the reworked Annapurna Labs business that makes AWS's silicon chips (Nitro, Graviton, Trainium, and Inferentia), and their quantum computing business, about which companies are very excited but utterly unable to communicate effectively to anyone who's ...