Google Cloud is giving Y Combinator startups entry to a devoted, sponsored cluster of Nvidia graphics processing models and Google tensor processing models to construct AI fashions. It’s a part of Google Cloud’s effort to cozy up with promising early-stage AI startups, in hopes a few of them will evolve into large, compute-hungry enterprise.
“We want to surround them with a lot of love and warmth early in their lifecycle so they get familiarized with building and working on the Google Cloud Platform,” mentioned basic supervisor for Google Cloud’s startups and AI enterprise, James Lee, in an interview with TechCrunch. “As they stick around, we grow as they grow, and we become a partner of theirs throughout their lifecycle.”
Specifically, Google will present a devoted cluster with precedence entry for YC’s Summer 2024 startups, together with $350,000 in cloud credit over two years for every collaborating startup. The concept is {that a} future unicorn will fall in love with constructing on Google Cloud. Five p.c of Y Combinator startups over the past 18 years have grow to be unicorns with billion-dollar-plus valuations, YC group associate Diana Hu tells TechCrunch, so it’s a good wager for Google to make on this partnership.
“There’s a lot of excitement that the next generation of startups will probably not just unicorn, but decacorn, and they’re getting built as we speak,” mentioned Hu. “Cloud providers are still catching up in terms of how to price them, but they do know if you catch them early on, you’re going to ride the wave with them.”
On the flip facet, Y Combinator says it may appeal to extra AI startups to use by providing beneficiant compute sources alongside its funding and steerage. For early-stage AI startups, Hu says one of the vital widespread points she hears is that startups are compute-restrained. Large enterprises are in a position to strike multi-year, large offers with cloud suppliers for GPU entry, however small startups are sometimes omitted to dry. She says partnerships like these go a great distance, particularly when you will have a devoted cluster – that’s notably essential for coaching AI fashions.
“For GPU and AI workloads, they’re more like high performance computing workloads in batches. You don’t need the server running all the time, but you need a lot of them in a spiky workload,” mentioned Hu. “So we have a dedicated cluster that YC companies can just use.”
As a part of the partnership, Google can even supply YC startups $12,000 in Enhanced Support credit and a free 12 months of Google Workspace Business Plus. YC startups can even join with Google’s inside AI specialists by means of month-to-month workplace hours.
Startup accelerators and enterprise capital companies are providing GPU clusters increasingly more nowadays. Andreessen Horowitz reportedly has a stash of 20,000 GPUs to draw AI startups. Google Cloud and Y Combinator wouldn’t reveal the precise quantity on this deal, however Hu says it’s enough for YC’s basis mannequin firms to coach fashions on.
