Exclusive | Amazon in Talks to Buy AI Startup Decart for Around $7 Billion

Amazon — the company that already knows what you bought, what you watched, and what you'll buy next — is in talks to acquire artificial-intelligence startup Decart for around $7 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. Seven billion dollars. For a startup whose software "makes it easier for developers to switch between different AI chips." That's it. A glorified adapter cable. At least Decart comes with a feature that isn't just sucking up dust bunnies.

Decart is based in San Francisco, which is where you'd expect a company valued at $7 billion for a chip-switching layer to be based, because nowhere else on Earth would that valuation pass a straight face. The article doesn't say which chips, or how many, or why switching is hard. It doesn't need to. The $7 billion is not for the software; it's for the option to not be permanently handcuffed to Nvidia, whose market cap could buy every startup in San Francisco and still have enough for a round of espresso. Amazon isn't buying a product; it's buying a hedge against the chipmaker that currently holds the entire AI industry in a headlock.

The deal is "in talks," which means it might not happen, but the leak has already done its job — unnamed sources whispering to the Wall Street Journal, a valuation floated, a stock price twitching. Amazon, for its part, has said nothing, because saying something would require acknowledging that $7 billion for a toggle switch is a bit much. Antitrust regulators, who spent the last decade waking up just in time to do nothing, will likely treat this as another Tuesday. The great AI consolidation continues apace, and the only people switching chips will be the ones who can afford the exit fee. Cheers.