❯ Amazon in talks to buy AI startup Decart for about $7 billion, which could give its in-house chips a software layer

Could close within daysAmazon is in talks to acquire AI startup Decart in a deal that could be worth about $7 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported on October 11, citing people familiar with the matter. According to SiliconANGLE’s account of the report, a deal could be completed in the coming days if talks do not break down and no other bidder emerges.

Software for switching chipsDecart was founded in 2023 by three Israeli engineers. Its core product is software called DOS, which helps developers tune AI models to run efficiently on different chips. Optimizing a model for a specific chip used to take months and can now take about two weeks, making it easier for companies to change platforms when chip supply tightens or needs shift. The company also builds world models such as Lucy and Oasis, which generate realistic 3D environments for games and robot training.

Anthropic walked away last monthDecart raised $300 million in May at a $4 billion valuation from investors including Radical Ventures, Nvidia Ventures, Adobe Ventures, Sequoia and Benchmark. Bloomberg previously reported that Anthropic was in talks in September to buy Decart for about $6 billion and pulled out after due diligence, for reasons that are unclear.

The missing piece for in-house chipsAmazon Web Services sells its own AI training chip, Trainium3. Running a model on a different chip means optimizing it again, which is the problem Decart’s software solves. The report said Decart received early access to Trainium3 last year. If the acquisition goes through, Amazon could hand the tool directly to customers and lower the barrier to moving onto its chips.

▮ SIGNALBuilding a custom chip is only the first step; whether customers move depends on how painful migration is, and cloud providers are now paying heavily for the moving tools.