Seattle-based Amazon Web Services announced today it has introduced a new cloud-computing service based on graphics processing units (GPUs). Portland, OR-based Elemental Technologies is the first company to offer cloud-based services for video transcoding on top of Amazon Web Services.

Elemental is going after broadcast and online video customers in its push to become the go-to supplier of technologies that help people watch high-quality video on any device, anytime.

The target customers of Amazon’s new service, more broadly, are developers and businesses that need high-performance computing on demand. GPUs are powerful graphics chips that provide unique parallel-processing capabilities. Amazon Web Services is using chips made by Nvidia.

GigaOm reported more details and context around Elemental and Amazon last month, well ahead of any announcement.

Gregory T. Huang is Xconomy's Editor in chief. E-mail him at gthuang [at] xconomy.com. Follow @gthuang

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