(Yicai Global) June 28 -- Amazon Web Services, the cloud computing arm of US e-commerce giant Amazon, has launched a startup accelerator for artificial intelligence firms in the Chinese market for the first time.

In the first phase, the accelerator will focus on helping AI startups to quickly launch products online in areas including generative AI, corporate service software, e-commerce solutions, and smart car solutions, the Seattle-based firm said at its Shanghai summit, which kicked off yesterday and runs through today. Global business deployment will also be sped up, it added.

To grasp generative AI development opportunities, firms must have cloud platforms of ultra-large-scale and high cost-performance ratio to support continuous training and large-scale reasoning, Zhang Wenyi, an executive director and global vice president of AWS China, said at the summit. 

Many startups will begin to develop generative AI applications, Gu Fan, general manager at AWS China's strategic business development department, told Yicai Global. They have joined the wave of basic model creation, which are key underlying platforms for generative AI, Gu added.

Chinese startups set their sights on international markets from the first day of business, and AWS' global network can help them go overseas, Gu pointed out.

Selling underlying technology to third parties via cloud services is becoming a new battleground for cloud operators. In April, AWS unveiled Bedrock, a generative AI services development tool, to aid the firm in its rivalry with Microsoft's Azure and Google Cloud Platform. AWS also uses its own custom chips. 

Known as Amazon Cloud Technology in the Chinese mainland, AWS has the largest share of the global cloud market, with as many as 83 percent of the world's top 1,000 unicorns running on AWS, Gu noted.

Editors: Shi Yi, Martin Kadiev