…Open application for 2025 generative AI accelerators
Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), on Monday announced it will award $1 million in credits and mentorship, education, and access to enterprise-grade expertise to help startups building transformative generative AI technologies scale.
AWS will select 40 promising startups across the world for the third cohort of the AWS Generative AI Accelerator (GAIA), an eight-week global program designed to scale early-stage startups building foundational generative AI technologies.
Applications for this year’s cohort opened on Tuesday June 10, and are expected to run till Thursday July 10, 2025. The selected cohort for the 2025 AWS Generative AI Accelerator will be announced on Wednesday September 24, 2025, while the program kicks kick off on Monday October 13, 2025, at Amazon HQ1 in Seattle, USA.
The program aims to accelerate startups with about $1 million in AWS credits, technical guidance and mentorship, go-to-market support, and access to AWS’s generative AI tech stack, including building models, infrastructure, fine-tuning tools, and agentic workflows that will drive the next wave of innovation.
The 2025 cohort will reflect AWS’s commitment to global inclusion, with selected companies drawn from North America, Asia Pacific and Japan, Europe, Middle East, and Africa, and Latin America. The program will include industry-specific mentoring and support for foundational model companies, infrastructure providers, and application-layer innovators.
“This year’s program is part of our continued commitment to accelerate generative AI innovation around the world by providing ground-breaking startups with the credits, mentorship, and visibility they need to scale with confidence,” Jon Jones, VP/ global head of startups at AWS, said in a statement.
According to Jones, startups building large language models, infrastructure tooling, fine-tuning platforms, or foundational agents are especially encouraged to apply. He added that the eight-week hybrid program, offers virtual sessions between the in-person launch at the Amazon HQ in Seattle and conclusion of the program at AWS re:Invent 2025.
“We are now at a stage where virtually all startups will be applying generative AI to their business in one shape or form. That’s why for this year’s accelerator, we are honing our focus to support those startups developing the foundational technologies that will define what’s possible with AI,” Jones said.
He also disclosed that prior AWS experience is not required, but those already building on AWS will benefit most from hands-on architecture guidance and marketplace enablement. However, applying companies should have a functioning Minimum Viable Product (MVP), some customer traction, and a strong technical team.
Simon Kohl, CEO/founder, Latent Labs, which participated in the 2024 AWS Generative AI Accelerator, in a testimonial stated that the AWS Generative AI Accelerator offered a unique blend of technical depth and commercial reach, which was instrumental in accelerating both its platform capabilities and market adoption.
“At Latent Labs, we are building AI foundation models to make biology programmable and accelerate and improve drug discovery. AWS moves quickly to adapt to the fast-evolving generative AI landscape, not just with infrastructure and tooling, but with programs designed to help generative AI startups scale.
“As a founder, you gain access to an ecosystem that understands both the demands of building cutting-edge AI systems and the importance of aligning those systems with real-world customer needs,” Kohl stated.
Tracy Chan, CEO, Splash Music, also part of the 2024 cohort program, stated that the AWS accelerator was a game-changer for Splash Music. According to him, it gave the firm early access to cutting-edge AWS tools like SageMaker, HyperPod and Trainium, which included hands-on support to migrate its models from a previous provider to accelerate research velocity and model performance.
“At Splash Music, we’re reimagining how music is created and discovered, transforming it from a background activity into the interactive, expressive experience Gen Z consumers connect with. Beyond the tech, AWS’s support with go-to-market strategy, public exposure, and hiring world-class talent helped us hit milestones faster than planned. For any startup building, GAIA is a no-brainer,” Chan stated.
