FlexAI Raises $30M to Solve Generative AI Chip Shortage
French startup FlexAI has raised €28.5 million ($30 million) in a seed funding round led by Alpha Intelligence Capital (AIC), Elaia Partners, and Heartcore Capital to help companies better access and use the computing power crucial for generative AI applications and projects. FlexAI offers tools for reorganizing computing infrastructure to support large language models (LLMs) and other AI development, starting with an on-demand cloud service for AI model training.
FlexAI for Compute
FlexAI has been in stealth mode since October of last year but emerged with both funding and a product. The startup’s software acts as an intermediary for AI programs written in the most common coding languages, optimizing them to run on an array of different chipsets. It’s a way of integrating diverse compute hardware setups. Developers can build and train AI applications across various computing architectures without the need for extensive code modifications.
That means companies can overcome the current scarcity of Nvidia chips, which is pretty much the standard for advanced AI development at the moment. The service also streamlines and reduces costs without requiring big teams to navigate the complexity of building and deploying generative AI models in different formats. FlexAI is collaborating with Nvidia in its work though, along with chipmakers like Intel and AMD, as well as Google Cloud, AWS, and other cloud platforms.
By the end of this year, FlexAI aims to launch its first commercial product, a service that connects developers with virtual heterogeneous compute environments. This service will enable the execution of workloads across multiple architectures, enhancing the reliability and efficiency of AI model development. FlexAI has the experience to back up its quest. Co-founder and CEO Brijesh Tripathi was a senior design engineer at Nvidia and most recently served as general manager and chief architect at Intel’s AI and super compute subsidiary AXG. CTO Dali Kilani also spent time at Nvidia, joining FlexAI after leaving the same position at French healthcare tech infrastructures provider Lifen.
“We believe in AI’s transformative power to solve some of humanity’s biggest problems, but it will require a 1000x magnitude more compute to be able to realize this vision,” Tripathi said. “The availability of AI compute today is limited to a select few. Our vision is to unlock access to compute for the many.”
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