TECH COGNOSCENTI and major media responded in unison this fall when Amazon Web Services announced its $1.25 billion investment in Anthropic, a generative AI startup. AWS was scrambling to stay relevant in the post-ChatGPT world, they all agreed, “trying to keep pace” with Microsoft and Google (New York Times) or “racing to catch” them (CNBC) because it “doesn’t look like the leader” (Business Insider).
Never mind that AWS is the world’s dominant cloud provider, far larger than Microsoft’s Azure or Alphabet’s Google Cloud. The conventional wisdom was that cloud services had abruptly entered a new phase—Cloud 2.0, in which giants must compete based on how well their software, storage, and other tools support AI—and AWS wasn’t equipped to win under the new rules.
When asked if AWS is “catching up,” CEO Adam Selipsky doesn’t explicitly deny it. “We’re about three steps into a 10K race,” he tells “Which runner is a half-step ahead or behind? It’s not really the important question. The
