Amazon.com Inc. is reportedly discussing a possible acquisition of artificial intelligence developer Decart.ai Inc. in a deal worth up to $7 billion.
Decart has developed software that makes it easier for developers to run their AI models on different processors. This has proven to be a valuable feature as companies struggle to secure computing infrastructure for their AI applications.
A report in the Wall Street Journal today quotes people familiar with the talks as saying that a deal could be completed in the coming days unless talks fail or no other suitor emerges.
Decart last raised $300 million in May at a valuation of $4 billion, bringing its total to over $400 million. Its major investors include Radical Ventures, Nvidia Ventures, Adobe Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Benchmark. The startup was founded in 2023 by a trio of Israeli software engineers, including brothers Dean and Orian Leitersdorf and Moshe Shalev.
The company has developed software called DOS that can help developers accelerate AI training and inference workloads by optimizing their neural networks to run on a specific processor. Most AI workloads require developers to optimize a neural network for the chip they want to run it on.
This process used to take months, but with DOS the workflow required to accomplish this can be compressed into just a few weeks. This allows companies to use Decart’s software to shift AI workloads to other processors as their needs change or chip availability becomes an issue.
In addition to DOS, Decart is also a model developer and is responsible for creating the Lucy and Oasis world models, which are intended to generate and simulate realistic three-dimensional environments for video games, robot training and other use cases.
It’s still possible that another applicant will come along and outbid Amazon. A Bloomberg report said Anthropic PBC was in talks to buy Decart last month. However, after due diligence on the startup, it ultimately pulled out of a reported $6 billion deal. It’s not clear what ultimately stopped Anthropic from pursuing a deal.
Decart’s DOS platform could be very useful for training AI models for Amazon Web Services Inc., the cloud computing arm of Amazon that offers its own custom AI processors in Trainium3. Decart reportedly gained early access to the Trainium3 chips last year before they became more widely available, following a meeting with senior AWS engineers who were reportedly very impressed with the startup’s founders.
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