Though AWS started behind competitors such as Microsoft and Google when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI), the AWS Summit London appeared to be an attempt to catch up. The focus of the event was on innovation, sustainability, sovereignty, price-to-value ratio and the development of generative AI (GenAI) applications.
This article provides an overview of the key topics and announcements from the event, examines AWS' strategic approach and assesses the company’s impact on the market and customers.
AWS Focuses on AI and Innovation
The dominant theme of the AWS Summit London was undoubtedly AI. AWS has raised expectations about its efforts to support customers with AI tools, and it used the opportunity to address those expectations.
Amazon Bedrock is a fully managed service that allows companies to create, test and deploy GenAI in a safe environment. The service is now also available in London, Frankfurt and Paris in Europe, as well as in Tokyo and several regions in the U.S.
Alternatives are available from GitHub, CoPilot from Microsoft, Vertex AI by Google Cloud, IBM Watson and others.
With Bedrock, users can deploy powerful foundation models (FMs) such as AI21 Labs, Anthropic, Cohere, Meta, Mistral AI, Stability AI and Amazon. Note that Amazon invested $4 billion to become Anthropic’s primary cloud provider for mission-critical workloads.
AWS offers a wide selection of models, including Claude, Llama, Jurassic and Amazon Titan to give customers choices via APIs. The added value for customers lies in the easy integration and management of these models, allowing companies to develop and scale AI-driven applications. Bedrock offers flexibility in choosing the underlying models and supports various AI frameworks, making it an option for companies that need customized AI solutions and do not want to rely on a single provider.
At the event, AWS presented Amazon-Titan Foundation Models that offer a wide range of image, multimodal and text options. These models are pre-trained and can be used as-is or customized with user-specific data.
When it comes to foundation models, AWS is catching up with competitors with the company’s signature commitment, reach and size. Building and maintaining a foundation model requires a great deal of energy and is feasible only for the few large, globally operating data center operators, including AWS. But two questions remain: how many foundation models does the market need? And how many can we afford considering their energy consumption?
Another new offering presented at the event was Amazon Q, a front-end solution designed to help users solve problems, generate content and gain insights by accessing company data and systems. Most importantly for enterprises, users can add company data on top of the preferred large language model (LLM) without the risk of the data being incorporated into the LLM.
At the AWS London event, Europe's largest Germany-based travel company TUI discussed its long-term partnership with AWS and its use of AWS' GenAI offerings. It shared its plans to roll out Amazon Q Developer to 2,000 developers and revealed that it had experimented with Amazon Bedrock to automate the generation of hotel descriptions. It aims to enhance processes for curating personalized content by fine-tuning language models and implementing human-in-the-loop workflows.
Sustainability and Scalability
Another critical topic discussed at the event was sustainability. AWS claimed that its cloud services are often more sustainable than customers' on-premise data centers. The company set a goal to power its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025 and reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. A global collective of designers, engineers and technical experts, Arup, uses AI and digital technologies from AWS to facilitate sustainable cities, support net-zero energy and transport, design low-carbon buildings, promote biodiversity, predict and mitigate natural disasters and accelerate sustainable business outcomes.
Regional Expansion
AWS said regional expansion is another key focus area. The company set up new operations in Saudi Arabia and plans to introduce the Bedrock AI stack in London, making it the seventh region where it is available. The company claims to prioritize customer proximity and regional availability of cloud services.
AWS Case Studies and Applications
During the event, AWS presented the following customer examples to show how clients leverage the AI-Cloud-Platform AWS provides:
- Adidas has deployed applications significantly faster and improved page load times, which also aids in identifying trends and predicting future product offerings using data streaming and machine learning.
- Accenture's migration of its contact centers resulted in a substantial reduction in operational costs and downtime. This migration also seems to enable the development of new customer features and enhance agent efficiency.
- Philips utilizes its Philips HealthSuite Platform to deliver personalized therapies for cancer patients. This platform supports healthcare teams in improving patient care.
AWS also announced a free training program aimed at enhancing cloud computing skills globally. These updates are meant to make AI more accessible and efficient for developers and businesses of all sizes.
Sovereignty
Max Peterson, VP, Sovereign Cloud, emphasized the importance of data residency and security. AWS now offers 143 security standards/compliance certifications and plans to launch the first European Sovereign Cloud Region by the end of 2025. This is especially important for Europe-based customers with high data protection and data sovereignty requirements. According to AWS, the IT service management company SVA System Vertrieb Alexander GmbH in Germany is one of its European customers that appreciates AWS's commitment to increasing sovereignty as they serve customers from regulated industries such as the public sector.
IPL Quadrant Analysis – Sovereign Cloud
At the end of 2023, ISG analyzed the public cloud market in the European Union for the first time from the perspective of sovereign cloud services. This study evaluated service providers offering infrastructure as a service (IaaS) according to the Gaia-X framework. Most of the providers in this quadrant analysis have European roots and offer data residency within the European Union.
AWS continues to invest in product development for the sovereign cloud. In August 2023, it announced the AWS Dedicated Local Zones. In October 2023, the company announced the launch of the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. Together, these initiatives are expected to improve compliance for customers in highly regulated industries in the European Union in the future.
AWS plans to launch its first AWS region in the state of Brandenburg, Germany, by the end of 2025. This initiative, available to all AWS customers, is supported by investments of € 7.8 billion in infrastructure, job creation and skill development. AWS European Sovereign Cloud will leverage the full power of AWS with the same familiar architecture, expansive service portfolio and existing APIs.
Our IPL analysis finds that, in terms of portfolio attractiveness, AWS can be ranked at the top. Its technology stack built from the ground up is extensively used by companies to design, build and manage an agile, scalable and secure public cloud infrastructure. AWS' "sovereign by design" feature provides end users with a highly secure cloud environment.
Out of the 50 companies evaluated for this study, 16 qualified for this quadrant, with six identified as “Leaders.”
Future Prospects and Conclusion
Europe is leading the way to safer cloud solutions by setting a high bar for data sovereignty and data protection, as we have seen with the GDPR. The recently passed AI Act underscores this focus.
In this context, it is clear that AWS has had its ear to the ground and responded quickly to customer requirements. With its investments in AI, sustainable solutions and the expansion of its regional cloud portfolio, AWS is positioned to continue playing a leading role in the cloud and AI markets in the future. The ability to offer customer-oriented, innovative and sustainable solutions will be crucial in competing with other hyperscale cloud providers like Microsoft and Google.
The combination of technological expertise, sustainable practices and strong customer orientation makes AWS a key player in the industry. The future of the AWS cloud clearly lies in the area of cloud-based AI. Proximity to the market and customers will enable AWS to offer performant, secure and innovative services.
About the author
Heiko Henkes
Heiko Henkes serves as Managing Director and Principal Analyst at ISG, where he oversees the Global ISG Provider Lens™ (IPL) Program for all IT Outsourcing (ITO) studies alongside his pivotal role in the global IPL division as strategic program manager and thought leader for IPL Lead Analysts. Additionally, Henkes heads the Star of Excellence, ISG's global customer experience initiative, steering program design and its integration with IPL and ISG’s sourcing practice. His expertise lies in guiding companies through IT-based business model transformations, leveraging his deep understanding of continuous transformation, IT competencies, sustainable business strategies, and change management in a Cloud-AI-driven business landscape. Henkes is renowned for his contributions as a keynote speaker on digital innovation, where he shares insights on leveraging technology for business growth and transformation.
