At its re: Invent conference today, AWS announced SageMaker Studio Lab, a free service that helps developers learn machine learning techniques and experiment with the technology. Studio Lab gives users all the basics to get started, including a JupyterLab IDE, model training on CPUs and GPUs, and 15GB of persistent memory.
In addition, Amazon also launched the AWS AI & ML scholarship program today. The company allocates $ 10 million annually to this program, which it is running in partnership with Intel and Udacity. 2,000 students will receive Udacity Nanodegree scholarships each year through this program, in addition to mentoring from Amazon and Intel employees.
“The two initiatives we are announcing today are designed to open up machine learning education opportunities to make it more accessible to all those interested in the technology,” said Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of Amazon Machine Learning at AWS. “Machine learning will be one of the most transformative technologies of this generation. If we are to unleash the full potential of this technology to address some of the world’s toughest problems, we need the best minds who enter the field from all backgrounds and walks of life. With this new scholarship program, we want to inspire and inspire a diverse future workforce and break down the cost barriers that keep many from getting started with machine learning. “
Photo credits: AWS
To get started with Studio Lab, developers can sign up for a free account that must be approved before they can use the service. However, it is unclear what the requirements for access are.
“Our mission at AWS is to make machine learning (ML) more accessible. Through many conversations over the past few years, I have learned the obstacles that many ML beginners face, ”writes Antje Barth from AWS in today’s announcement. “Existing ML environments are often too complex or too limited for beginners to support modern ML experiments. Beginners want to start learning quickly, rather than worrying about booting up infrastructure, configuring services, or implementing billing alarms to avoid over budget. This underscores another barrier for many people: the need to provide billing and credit card information when registering. “
