[nrmitchi]

I have no evidence, but my suspicion is that programs like this are designed similiarly to large credit grants given to startups.

If they see a project that seems "interesting" (ie, has a potentially to be successful and have a very high AWS spend in the future), they're willing to subsidize[0] some costs now in order for you to get used to and build around AWS, and likely build more closely to AWS. If it ends up being successful, AWS has a much larger customer.

[0] I say subsidize in quotes because I seriously doubt AWS is taking a loss on any of this, they're just not making quite as much in profit.

[jmann99999]

This is my experience. Their grants are also in competitive spaces.

Do we want to move off Microsoft SQL Server and go to Postgres Aurora? Yes. AWS also wants us and everyone in the world to do that. It’s a win for us to get there because of reduced license costs. It’s a win for them, because they get the revenue from services.

So, they give grants to help us and help them build their services.