Amazon has acquired Edge chip company and AI model compression business Perceive for $80 million in cash.

The cloud and ecommerce giant bought the division from publicly-listed technology company Xperi.

Perceive will become part of Amazon's Devices & Services division, which also features the Alexa voice assistant, Fire TV, and Echo smart systems.

Cloud provider Amazon Web Services is separately developing larger, more powerful, chips - after acquiring Annapurna Labs more than a decade ago.

“We’re excited to have signed a deal to acquire Perceive and bring over its talented team to join our efforts to bring large language models and multi-modal experiences to devices capable of running on the Edge,” Amazon said in a statement.

The majority of Perceive's 44 employees are expected to join Amazon after the deal closes. The company's Ergo AI processor is pitched as an on-device AI inference processor.

“Since Perceive’s inception, the landscape for Edge inference technology has evolved, and Perceive, through the skill of its leaders and engineers, has adapted to this rapidly changing environment,” Jon Kirchner, the CEO of Xperi, said.

"We are pleased to have found a suitable home for Perceive, its employees, and its technology. We are excited that Amazon will be able to take the technology to the next level, which we believe has significant potential.”

The deal is expected to close by the end of the calendar year, subject to customary closing conditions.