Amazon announces its own set of Nova AI models

Amazon has announced a series of new AI foundation models under the "Nova" branding, available as part of the Amazon Bedrock model library in AWS. The initial release includes three "understanding" models: Amazon Nova Micro, a text model optimized for speed and cost, Amazon Nova Lite, a low-cost multimodal model, and Amazon Nova Pro, a highly capable multimodal model. A more advanced model called Amazon Nova Premier is currently in training and is expected to be available in early 2025. Amazon is also releasing content generation models, including Amazon Nova Canvas, an image generation model, and Amazon Nova Reel, a video generation model with watermarking capabilities. These models are designed to promote responsible AI use. Later in 2025, Amazon plans to release a speech-to-speech model and a native multimodal-to-multimodal model. The new models were announced at the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas, where Amazon also revealed plans to build a massive AI compute cluster using its Trainium 2 chips. This cluster is expected to be the world's largest AI compute cluster when completed. Amazon's existing internet infrastructure and trusted reputation may give it an advantage in the AI market, particularly among large enterprises. The company is also working on a revamped, AI-powered Alexa, although the launch has been delayed until next year.