Facing increasing pressure from rivals such as Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI, the global e-commerce and cloud giant Amazon is trying to turn around its position in the AI race through a major leadership shake-up. AIbase has learned that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy recently announced that Rohit Prasad, head of the company's AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) department, will leave next year, and Peter DeSantis, senior vice president of AWS, will take over.

DeSantis is a veteran who has worked at Amazon for over 30 years. He will lead a newly expanded department that not only includes the development of cutting-edge AI models but will also oversee in-house chip development and quantum computing businesses. This indicates that Amazon is attempting to deeply vertically integrate underlying hardware capabilities with upper-level model algorithms to address challenges from competitors in terms of computing power and energy efficiency.

AIbase observes that the departing Prasad was the soul behind Alexa. During his tenure, he launched Nova series AI models. Although Prasad publicly questioned the real reference value of mainstream AI benchmark tests, arguing that current evaluation methods are full of noise, it is undeniable that the Nova2 model lagged behind competitors in several key metrics, and the much-anticipated AI version of Alexa has been repeatedly delayed due to various technical challenges.

With this structural adjustment, Amazon also appointed top AI researcher Pieter Abbeel to lead advanced model research. At this critical moment when technological development is entering a "turning point," Amazon clearly aims to achieve a leap forward in the AGI competition by combining "veterans" with experts.