Decentralized cloud computing startup GPUnet has raised $5.25 million in its Series A funding round.
The company, which aims to provide pre-training clusters for enterprises to rent GPU compute, counts Momentum6, Spicy Capital, Exnetwork, Blackdragon, Zephyrus Capital, Aza Ventures, F7 Foundation, Halvings Capital, and Bigger than Race ventures among its investors.
The majority of GPUs are currently owned by the largest cloud providers, and there is a high premium for enterprises to purchase their own, and often long wait times.
GPUnet's supply comes from independent data center operators that have been providing compute to 'Web3 projects for mining' - that is, primarily crypto facilities.
According to GPUnet, these providers often have small clusters of computing resources available. GPUnet plans to use this distributed architecture to create a single network.
Suraj Chawla, founder and CEO of GPUnet, said: "I envision a future 2030 where a trillion dollar GDP will be created only out of energy & compute. This will be enabled by massive progress in the AI application space.
"If we see today the biggest AI companies are owned by those who also own the biggest data centers such as Microsoft and Meta, this will lead to massive monopoly or duopoly in global level LLMs that will be consumed. This is possible if we decentralize the ownership of the computational resources."
According to the GPUnet website, the company is offering access to Nvidia H100s for $5 per hour, and A100s for $1.5 per hour.
The company's roadmap suggests that it is currently in the process of establishing 2,000 node providers globally, with its platform scaling to 1,000 machines. According to the company's LinkedIn, GPUnet was founded in 2022.
