Amazon is designing its own chips for its products, a company executive has confirmed, as the tech giant reorients itself around artificial intelligence.
According to The Times of India, Amazon's head of devices and services, Panos Panay, confirmed the custom-chip effort in an interview with CNBC. Panay framed the move as part of a broader pivot toward an AI-first strategy for the company's products.
The Times of India report, which draws on commentary from a popular analyst, suggests the shift could mark the first major change in Amazon's processor strategy in roughly two decades. In other words, the way Amazon sources and designs the silicon inside its devices may be changing in a way it hasn't in a generation.
The sources here confirm the direction of travel rather than the fine print. What's established is that Amazon has publicly acknowledged building its own chips, that a senior executive tied to devices and services made the confirmation, and that the effort is bound up with the company's AI ambitions.
Why it matters: when a company the size of Amazon decides to design its own processors instead of relying on outside suppliers, it signals both how central AI has become to its plans and how much control it wants over the hardware that powers its products.