Abstract
This talk explores how resource-sharing in the nascent AI industry impacts technological innovation. More specifically, my research question is whether and how cloud services providers’ (CSPs’) sharing data-related processes influence the technologies AI startups use to build their products. Through longitudinal analysis of the impact of adding a CSP on the changes in the technologies that programmers use to build AI products, I find that adding any CSP leads to an increase in product development technologies. However, adding a large CSP – Amazon AWS, the largest provider – increases the likelihood that AI startups will use more similar technologies to other startups on the same cloud platform than other, smaller cloud services providers. These largest CSPs conduct substantial amounts of R&D to develop IT processes and share these data-related processes with their platform customers through startup programs. On the other hand, smaller CSPs lack the breadth of research and programs to share resources with their customer similarly.
This event is open to faculty, doctoral students, academic researchers, and graduate students.