On Tuesday, Amazon announced that Uber was expanding its contract for AWS cloud services to run more of its ride-sharing features on Amazon’s chips. This expansion will see Uber using AWS’s Graviton (a low-power, ARM-based server CPU) and starting a new trial with Trainium3, AWS’s competitor to Nvidia AI chips.

This move isn’t so much about a long-term threat to Nvidia as it is a clear statement from Amazon that it’s not taking its competitors lightly. Uber historically ran its own data centers but has been transitioning significant workloads to Oracle and Google Cloud since 2023, aiming to offload the management of these resources.

The history of Ampere, which was founded by former Intel executive Renee James after she was passed over for promotion, adds an intriguing layer. Ampere’s major competitor Softbank acquired it in December, with Oracle selling its stake for a significant gain. Meanwhile, Oracle has been focusing on buying chips from Nvidia, which now faces competition from AWS's in-house designed AI chips.

This shift means that big tech companies like Anthropic, OpenAI and Apple are increasingly choosing AWS because of these advancements. In December, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy revealed that Trainium was already a multibillion-dollar business. The move is not just about cost or performance but also about asserting dominance in the AI chip market.