November 30, 2023 7:21 PM
That's a wrap on AWS re:Invent 2023
November 30, 2023 7:19 PM
See what it’s like inside an Amazon Web Services data center
Generative artificial intelligence (generative AI) has been the talk of the town at AWS re:Invent this week, from AWS-designed custom chips to generative AI assistants to the latest foundation models. But have you ever wondered what it’s like inside a data center, where all those machine learning workloads are running? Take a look at the final episode in our ‘Data Centered’ series, a day in the life of three AWS data center employees in eastern Oregon.
November 30, 2023 7:16 PM
Cloud meets sustainability with interactive installations
AWS re:Invent attendees can visit the Sustainability Showcase to see demos of wildfire remote detection and monitoring; simulated ecological changes in Madagascar; the use of generative artificial intelligence (generative AI) to help ingest and analyze environmental, social, and governance (ESG)-related information to enhance sustainability decision-making; and renewable energy assets monitoring.
The installations are designed to educate and inspire organizations across all sectors on how they can leverage AWS services, including generative AI and machine learning, to drive sustainability progress.
Powered by Amazon Bedrock, one demo is equal parts artistry and inspiration. A large LED screen takes viewers through a series of scenarios powered by generative AI that asks the question, “What if we made different decisions with the same resources?” The AI model then produces an ever-changing series of answers in the form of changing landscapes, buildings, streets, and more.
November 30, 2023 6:30 PM
Generative AI startup founders make their first trip to re:Invent
Sisters Jhanvi and Ketaki Shriram have created a first-of-its-kind text-to-3D animation tool that allows users to build customizable avatars doing everything from Bollywood dancing to football plays—with no technical skill.
Krikey AI runs on a proprietary foundation model that works with Amazon’s Sagemaker to create animations based on a user’s text commands or video uploads, with no coding required.
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The siblings had a busy week at AWS re:Invent, giving demos of their generative AI-powered 3D animation company, Krikey AI, to a global audience. From the field of the Allegiant Stadium, where they shared their app with fellow startup leaders and venture capitalists, to their Q & A on the floor of the expo hall, the founders showed off the fruits of their 7-year journey from game developers to generative AI animation experts.
CTO Ketaki shared the stage Thursday with AWS product leaders to discuss how her team used human-in-the-loop technology with Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth to expedite their process of labeling hundreds of thousands of datapoints.
“We’re currently building the largest 3D human motion dataset in the world. We’ve already trained it so quickly, and we couldn’t have done it without Ground Truth and AWS.”
November 30, 2023 6:07 PM
As climate change fuels wildfire risks, these companies use AWS to fight back
As global temperatures continue to rise, so does the expected size, frequency, and intensity of wildfires. At re:Invent, four Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers shared how they’re using the latest AWS technologies to combat wildfires.
Analyzing satellite images for early wildfire detection
The same technology that scientists use to find new galaxies light-years away can also be used to detect wildfires here on Earth. Satellite cameras pointed at Earth offer images rich with data, including indicators of wildfires. Australian-based company exci uses artificial intelligence (AI) models trained on more than a billion images to accurately detect wildfires and alert local officials.
Estimating wildfire risk, property by property
A lot of people might read sprawling government reports or look at complicated charts and not understand how wildfire risk applies to them, at an individual level. First Street Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to making climate risk information more accessible, estimates the wildfire risk of every building and property in the contiguous U.S. People can visit riskfactor.com, enter their address, and see their risk factor on a scale of 1–10.
Scouring social media for wildfire clues
Kablamo is a technology solutions partner, crafting built-for-the-cloud digital products and data platforms, including wildfire detection tools. Working with the Rural Fire Service in New South Wales, Australia, the company built Athena, a system that assesses wildfire risk, helps plan for fuel reduction activities, and uses AI to comb through social media posts, looking for content about wildfires.
Using machine learning and drones for wildfire prevention
As fires get larger and occur more frequently, spotting and fixing potential electrical equipment failures becomes truly vital for electric utilities. San Diego Gas & Electric (SDGE) is combining the long experience of their qualified electrical workers, a bird’s-eye view of the utility’s equipment captured by a fleet of drones, and powerful machine learning (ML) models running on AWS. The drones take images to help identify equipment potentially in need of repair. SDGE also uses AI to help better predict which circuits are most prone to fires due to adverse weather conditions.
November 30, 2023 4:49 PM
It’s an exciting time to be a developer
Developers need to become “Frugal Architects,” said Amazon.com Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Werner Vogels, at re:Invent Thursday, sharing a set of simple rules for building cost-aware, sustainable, and modern architectures.
There’s so much technology out there competing for businesses’ attention, he pointed out, but they can’t afford to chase all of it. Instead, Vogels recommended that builders think of cost as what he called a “nonfunctional requirement of development.” In other words, consider cost early and continuously when you’re designing, developing, and operating your systems in order to balance features, time-to-market, and efficiency.
Conversely, it’s also important to constantly align development decisions with the needs of the business, which typically means delivering systems and applications that will save customers money. The architecture, Vogels said, must follow the money. To illustrate his point, Vogels mentioned how Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) saved 80% in streaming costs by re-architecting for the cloud.
Cat Swetel, senior director of engineering at Brazil’s Nubank, joined Vogels on stage to describe how costs were a key element in her institution’s successful delivery of a 24/7, no-fee, instant money transfer program called “Pix.” As Pix’s popularity quickly grew, Nubank systems had to handle exponentially larger and more intense workloads. They were left with a choice: buy more equipment and capacity or re-architect to solve the problem more frugally. They chose the latter approach and, as a result, saw improved stability, more predictable workloads, and a 92% decrease in latency. More importantly, she noted, the bank’s 9 million customers saved $8 billion in fees in 2022.
Vogels said developers also need to think about the connection between business costs and costs to the planet. Environmental sustainability as a fundamental element of software development is a “freight train coming your way,” he said, “and you can’t escape it.”
Fortunately, Vogels noted that cost is a close proxy for sustainability. If businesses are architecting for costs and tracking financial impact along the way, they should be able to estimate their environmental impact, as well. As an example, he pointed to WeTransfer, a Dutch computer file transfer service, which he said experienced a 78% emissions reduction after re-architecting, tracking, and measuring server systems.
Sustainability is just one of the things developers should keep top of mind with respect to doing right by people and the planet, Vogels said. For example, he noted that Cergenx, an Ireland-based neonatal neurotechnology company, is using artificial intelligence (AI) to quickly identify newborn infants at risk of birth-related brain injury. He also pointed to Digital Earth Africa, an organization collecting and analyzing satellite imagery to help governments around the world track environmental concerns like deforestation and erosion.
Dr. Rebecca Portnoff, head of data science for Thorn, took the stage to explain how her nonprofit organization is providing machine learning (ML)-based tools that scour millions of digital files worldwide looking for possible instances of sexual abuse against children. With more than 88 million files reviewed in 2022, Portnoff said it could literally take three years for a human being to find a single abuse “needle” in that “haystack” of files. But with ML acting as a magnet to pull out those needles, she said, the process is light years faster.
Vogels said that such innovation is part of what’s making software so exciting these days. He said there is a clear opportunity for technologies like AI and ML to do the heavy lifting, making coding faster and easier, but human beings will always be integrally involved in guiding it along and making decisions.
November 30, 2023 3:31 PM
Here’s how FlexZero uses generative AI for carbon tracking and reporting
Dr. David Johnsen, previously a sustainability application architect at Amazon Web Services (AWS), has seen companies around the globe face the same sustainability challenges—how to model their business activities with enough detail to accurately track, report, and reduce carbon emissions.
“Companies want to reduce their carbon emissions and need data to achieve this,” Johnsen said. “We saw that customer need over and over again.”
With fellow solutions architect Ravi Raghunathan, he set out to make a tool that guides customers through three steps. First, what are my carbon emissions today? Second, how do I report on them? Third, how do I start reducing my output?
The result is the sustainability platform they founded, FlexZero, a carbon management and disclosure tool built entirely on AWS and demoed at the re:Invent expo this week. It enables customers to track their carbon data, generate actionable insights, and reduce their emissions. For example, a shipping company might connect data about the distance a truck travels and how much weight it carries. Then, FlexZero processes that information to estimate carbon emissions, either using calculations with industry standard emission factors, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or the UK Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, or customer specific emission factors.
The platform uses AWS products and services, including AWS Lambda to run serverless code and Amazon Textract to extract printed text and data from documents. And by harnessing Amazon Bedrock, FlexZero integrates custom generative artificial intelligence (generative AI) into its carbon emissions analysis and reporting.
A customer could use the FlexZero chat feature to ask, “Which scope category should I target for reduction within my top five factories?” Or, “What do we need to do for our LA office to be compliant with California SB253,” and the platform will provide specific guidance.
The app is flexible (as reflected in its name), and customers can define the data it ingests, how they want the app to process the data, and which reports it should produce.
“Maybe you have an office, maybe you travel, maybe you make something,” Johnsen said. “FlexZero is industry agnostic.”
November 30, 2023 12:26 PM
New AWS Rec Center serves up AI-powered sports challenges for re:Invent attendees
Attendees at this year’s re:Invent can go to the event’s new Rec Center and experience firsthand how Amazon Web Services (AWS) innovates in the sports industry.
The Rec Center features games inspired by some of the major sports leagues that work with AWS, including Bundesliga and NFL. There are also other sports-related challenges, such as generative artificial intelligence (generative AI)-powered robotic chess.
Bundesliga Free Kick Challenge
The Bundesliga Free Kick Challenge debuted at re:Invent in 2022 and is back with new underlying technology. The AWS prototyping team has implemented ball tracking with computer vision (CV) running on AWS Panorama, trained with Amazon SageMaker. Two cameras, flexing a 200Hz frame rate and connected to an AWS Panorama Appliance, track the speed and accuracy of soccer balls as attendees kick them into a goal roughly 13 yards (12 meters) away.
The Bundesliga Free Kick Challenge debuted at re:Invent in 2022 and is back with new underlying technology. The AWS prototyping team has implemented ball tracking with computer vision (CV) running on AWS Panorama, trained with Amazon SageMaker. Two cameras, flexing a 200Hz frame rate and connected to an AWS Panorama Appliance, track the speed and accuracy of soccer balls as attendees kick them into a goal roughly 13 yards (12 meters) away.
NFL Passing Challenge
In advance of the Super Bowl coming to Las Vegas this season, attendees can throw a football at the NFL Passing Challenge to see how they measure up to NFL quarterbacks. The ball’s speed and trajectory are tracked in real time using Zebra Technologies’ ultra-precise location technology. Tracking data is then streamed to the cloud with Amazon Kinesis Data Streams, where it is stored in Amazon Redshift and analyzed in real time using Amazon SageMaker. Together, these technologies power Next Gen Stats, the real-time insights used during live NFL broadcasts.
In advance of the Super Bowl coming to Las Vegas this season, attendees can throw a football at the NFL Passing Challenge to see how they measure up to NFL quarterbacks. The ball’s speed and trajectory are tracked in real time using Zebra Technologies’ ultra-precise location technology. Tracking data is then streamed to the cloud with Amazon Kinesis Data Streams, where it is stored in Amazon Redshift and analyzed in real time using Amazon SageMaker. Together, these technologies power Next Gen Stats, the real-time insights used during live NFL broadcasts.
Generative AI-powered robotic chess
On the Rec Center’s chessboard, two advanced robotic arms engage in an epic game, powered by cutting-edge AI and state-of-the-art robotic control. These highly articulated arms are equipped with advanced sensors, ensuring accurate manipulation of chess pieces. And they use AWS generative AI models for advanced learning and reinforcement techniques, constantly evolving their gameplay strategies based on extensive training data. This project showcases the incredible potential of intelligent automation and the seamless integration of robotics with AWS generative AI capabilities.
On the Rec Center’s chessboard, two advanced robotic arms engage in an epic game, powered by cutting-edge AI and state-of-the-art robotic control. These highly articulated arms are equipped with advanced sensors, ensuring accurate manipulation of chess pieces. And they use AWS generative AI models for advanced learning and reinforcement techniques, constantly evolving their gameplay strategies based on extensive training data. This project showcases the incredible potential of intelligent automation and the seamless integration of robotics with AWS generative AI capabilities.
November 30, 2023 10:06 AM
AWS Partners make the impossible possible
With technology advancing at such a rapid pace, strong industry partnerships will be crucial in helping customers take advantage of it. That was the message from Ruba Borno, Amazon Web Services (AWS) vice president of Worldwide Channels and Alliances, in her re:Invent keynote.
Borno said this is particularly true when it comes to generative artificial Intelligence (generative AI), which a recent McKinsey report found could eventually contribute up to $4.4 trillion to the global economy. Customers attempting to move from using the technology in pilot to actual production need help ensuring they get the underlying data foundations right first. And such transformation is often too time-consuming and complex for them to handle on their own.
That’s why AWS works with a vibrant and growing community of more than 150,000 partners to push the boundaries of what’s possible and overcome the impossible for customers, Borno said.
Here are some highlights from her keynote.
- A new collaboration between AWS and professional services company Accenture will help developers and enterprise customers accelerate the adoption of Amazon Q.
- A new strategic collaboration between AWS and digital workflow company ServiceNow will help customers put AI to work in their businesses. Customers will see the ServiceNow Platform become available as a software as a service (SaaS) offering in the AWS Marketplace in 2024.
- Blackstone, a global investment company managing $1 trillion in assets, is working with AWS and Pinecone, a vector database provider, to deliver a generative AI–based solution to empower their investor teams.
- Hotelier Marriott International is working with AWS, consultancy firm Deloitte, and software vendor Palo Alto Networks to deliver digital guest services more safely and securely with AI, according to Arno Van Der Walt, chief information security officer for Marriott.
- Documentary streaming service MagellanTV worked with AWS Partner Mission Cloud to create a generative AI solution on AWS to automate the workflow of translating, transcribing, and dubbing its content into various languages. According to MagellanTV co-founder Thomas Lucas, the automated solution “redefined the economics of distribution” by dramatically cutting the cost of these activities.
- The U.S. Air Force worked with AWS and partner C3 AI to roll out a machine learning (ML) project that’s helped reduce costs, improve efficiency, and predict the performance of its fleet of about 5,000 aircraft. C3 AI has been working with the Air Force since 2008 to make sense of its data, and more recently started applying ML to identify aircraft component issues so planes can be scheduled for maintenance or repair before these issues become larger problems that result in downtime.
Joining Borno onstage toward the end, AWS CEO Adam Selipsky underscored the importance of partners in helping AWS support customers around the world.
November 30, 2023 7:00 AM
Amazon CTO Dr. Werner Vogels shares 4 tech predictions for 2024
Amazon CTO Dr. Werner Vogels offers his insights on the technological advances on the horizon, from culturally aware artificial intelligence (AI) to FemTech to the evolution of tech education.
November 29, 2023 6:48 PM
Why human ingenuity will continue to be the driving force of innovation
The relationship between people and automated technology can trace its roots to the 1880s, Swami Sivasubramanian, AWS vice president of Data and AI, told the re:Invent audience during his keynote Wednesday.
Back then, mathematician Ada Lovelace suggested future generations of computers would be able to handle complex tasks, and even produce art and music. But she maintained they would still need direction for creative ideas from their human counterparts, as machines can’t really originate anything on their own.
Sivasubramanian said such thinking was an early ode to the potential of generative artificial intelligence (generative AI). As effective as it may be, it’s still in its early stages and remains entirely dependent on clean data and human input for its success. Data, generative AI, and people can complement each other to deliver innovation and better experiences for customers.
To illustrate the point, he gave a hypothetical example of using our generative AI service Amazon Bedrock to create apps for do-it-yourselfers (DIYers) to pursue projects more simply and efficiently. DIYers would be able to use natural language to ask such an app about any type of project and receive a list of detailed steps, materials, tools, and recommendations for completing it. The app would use customer inputs to generate images of their project to inspire the user’s work and direction. And it would also be able to search its data resources to offer product suggestions, reviews, and pricing.
A photo of Nhung Ho, vice president of AI, IntuitSivasubramanian was joined by Nhung Ho, VP of AI at global financial technology platform Intuit. She told the audience how Amazon Sagemaker is a foundational capability for the company, allowing its entire community of machine learning developers to build, deploy, and ship new AI experiences with speed.
Next, Aravind Srinivas CEO and co-founder of Perplexity AI, described how his company is working with AWS to reimagine the future of web search through its generative AI chatbot, Copilot. He said the tool uses commercial, open source, and its own online large language models (LLMs), released this month, to unlock knowledge with information discovery and sharing. AWS tools and technologies play a big part in bringing all those models together, Srinivas said.
Aravind Srinivas CEO and co-founder of Perplexity AIFollowing Perplexity, Brian Kursar, group vice president, digital technology, and Ashley Parks, senior devops engineer at Toyota Motor Corp. explained how the automaker embeds hundreds of sensors in its vehicles to gather safety-related data, such as whether the vehicle has been in a collision requiring an emergency response. Processing petabytes of such data worldwide in real time when every second counts presented an enormous engineering challenge that the breadth of the AWS portfolio was able to address. If an issue occurs, the technology triggers an alert in the AWS Cloud, and then an employee from the call center then reaches out to drivers within seconds. Toyota is also experimenting with generative AI, the executives said. In fact, using Amazon Bedrock, the automaker was able to ingest the owner’s manual and develop a generative AI–powered assistant that will be able to give drivers information about their car in response to simple voice commands.
Beyond business, Sivasubramanian emphasized generative AI can also improve the health and welfare of people around the world, regardless of their location. In fact, he delivered this point when co-presenting with Dr. Kingsley Ndoh, founder of Hurone AI, at a U.N. General Assembly event in New York in September.
In all these cases, people, data, and technology come together to deliver an array of possibilities. As Lovelace suggested more than a century ago, people will continue to be the driving force of innovation, helped by a powerful new technology to inspire their thinking and creativity.
November 29, 2023 6:09 PM