A new GPU cloud provider relying on AMD hardware has launched.
Nscale announced its official launch this week, offering services based on AMD’s Instinct MI300X GPU accelerators.
The company is offering services out of cryptomining firm and sister company Arkon Energy’s data center in Glomfjord, Norway. The site is powered by hydroelectric energy and utilizes natural cooling.
Nscale said its AI stack can provide customers price, performance, and efficiency for demanding LLM and GenAI workloads.
As well as the MI3000X, the company’s site says it also offers access to AMD MI250 GPUs as well as Nvidia’s A100, H100, and V100 GPUs; the company says its cloud can be used for tasks such as AI training, rendering, and scientific computing.
“Over the coming years, AI will proliferate into every enterprise, product, and service, driving unprecedented demand for AI infrastructure. Nscale’s mission is to democratize high-performance computing to unleash the potential of AI," said Josh Payne co-founder and CEO of Nscale.
"By combining cutting-edge technology from AMD with Norway's abundant, low-cost energy, we are offering a next-gen AI Cloud platform that is not only powerful but also sustainable and cost-effective."
“At AMD, we believe in the transformative power of AI and are excited to work with Nscale to deliver cloud instances of the AMD Instinct MI300X accelerator,” added Andrew Dieckmann, corporate vice president and general manager, AMD Instinct Business.
“Through Nscale’s AI Cloud Services platform, the MI300X will deliver highly competitive Generative AI inferencing performance, leveraging the AMD ROCm open software ecosystem to enable a compelling TCO advantage to other market alternatives.”
Nscale's Payne is also CEO of Arkon Energy, and previously founded the Battery Future Acquisition Corp SPAC. A recent LinkedIn post from Payne confirms Nscale has been spun out of Arkon.
Arkon says it owns and operates Bitcoin at sites across Australia and internationally, with a focus on behind-the-meter facilities at renewable energy sites, mining its own coins, and hosting hardware for other miners.
Arkon began operations in 2021 with a 5MW facility in Brisbane, Australia. The company raised $2.6 million in pre-seed funding in February 2022.
Arkon raised $28 million in November 2022 to expand its operations and acquired a European-based data center, taking over Hydrokraft AS’ 30MW data center in Norway that launched in 2021 and has since upgraded to 60MW.
The company then raised another $110 million late last year in funding led by Bluesky Capital Management, with participation from Kestrel 0x1 and Nural Capital, and acquired a large-capacity facility in Ohio.
In the US, Arkon currently has 117MW of operating capacity across two Ohio data centers; a 95MW facility in Hannibal, and a 22MW facility in Hopedale. The company has agreements to increase capacity by a further 190MW.
The company is going through its own SPAC merger with BM3EAC Corp.
HPC and cryptomining firm Kontena has deployed two of its mining containers at the Glomfjord site.
