Amazon Web Services Inc. today announced Nova Forge at AWS re:Invent, a first-of-its-kind service that allows enterprise organizations to train and build their own frontier AI models based on the company’s Nova family.

Nova itself is a set of multimodal foundation models developed and released by AWS, including the next-generation Nova 2 Lite, Nova 2 Pro and Nova 2 Omni, also unveiled today.

As organizations seek to fine-tune or extend existing models, they face a growing challenge: the more proprietary data a model absorbs, the more likely it is to “forget” pieces of its original training. That regression can compromise core behaviors such as instruction following. According to AWS, what enterprises actually need is a way to create frontier-class models without risking erosion of those base capabilities.

Amazon noted that what organizations need is the capability to build frontier models without the risk of regressing them.

With Nova Forge, customers can do exactly that. The customized frontier models produced through the service are called “Novellas,” a blend of enterprise data and Nova’s frontier-level capabilities. The service offers exclusive access to checkpoints for pre-trained, mid-trained and post-trained Nova models. This allows customers to combine their data with curated Amazon datasets for optimal model training.

Organizations can begin building Novellas with Nova 2 Lite, the smallest model in the lineup, designed for fast, cost-effective reasoning for everyday tasks. Nova Forge users can also gain early access to Nova 2 Pro and Nova 2 Omni, giving them a head start on building applications — and larger, more capable Novellas — as those models come online.

Nova Forge introduces several powerful capabilities in addition to data-mixing. Customers can train AI in their existing environments, referred to as reinforcement learning “gyms,” where models interact with synthetic data and simulated scenarios that mimic real-world use.

Developers can also create smaller, faster distilled models that retain the intelligence of larger models at a lower cost. AWS has further bundled an AI safety toolkit that allows organizations to implement guardrails and policy-aligned controls.

Companies such as Booking.com B.V., Cosine AI, Nimbus Therapeutics, Nomura Research Institute, OpenBabylon, Sony Group Corp. and Reddit Inc. have started developing custom models with Nova Forge to better serve their interests.

“We’re replacing a number of different models with a single, more accurate solution that makes moderation more efficient,” said Chris Slowe, chief technology officer of Reddit. “The ability to replace multiple specialized ML workflows with one cohesive approach marks a shift in how we implement and scale AI across Reddit.”

Nova Forge is available today in the US East AWS Region, with availability in additional regions coming in the months ahead.

Photo: Robert Hof/SiliconANGLE