re:Invent 2024: Custom Silicon and the Case for Boring Choices

AWS closed 2024 with its usual firehose: custom training silicon, a new first-party model family, and a long list of database and storage improvements.

The pattern under the announcements

Two things were consistent. First, vertical integration — AWS building its own chips and its own models to control cost and supply rather than reselling someone else’s. Second, a steady grind of unglamorous improvements to the primitives most workloads actually sit on.

Where the value is for most teams

Almost nobody needs the frontier announcements. Most teams get more from the boring column: better managed database options, cheaper storage tiers, faster autoscaling. Those compound quietly across every workload rather than enabling one impressive demo.

Our advice to clients each December is the same. Read the release notes for the services you already run before reading the keynote coverage. The savings are usually in the former.