By Stelia’s Chief Executive Officer, Tobias Hooton
TLDR: [The AI revolution is transforming industries, economies, and societies. As AI permeates every facet of our lives, robust, scalable, and accessible infrastructure becomes essential. Stelia is leading from the front, offering technologies and platforms necessary to unlock AI’s full potential. For enterprises seeking to successfully navigate and thrive in this new landscape, partnering with pioneers like Stelia is essential.]
Enterprise AI is Here:
Artificial Intelligence is no longer a distant prospect; it’s reshaping industries and markets worldwide. McKinsey’s 2023 report estimates that generative AI alone could add $2.6 to $4.4 trillion annually to the global economy across various applications. This monumental impact underscores AI’s pervasive influence across all sectors.
At the recent Yotta 2024 AI Infrastructure Conference in Las Vegas we presented our view on how AI is rapidly integrating into business operations, evolving from centralized data centers to everyday applications, and redefining technology. Understanding these developments is crucial for business leaders aiming to leverage AI and maintain competitiveness in an increasingly AI-driven market.
You can download the presentation deck and extended speaker notes here.
The GPU Revolution: Transforming Computation
The rise of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) as a scalable compute asset marks a pivotal shift in technology. Beginning around 2020–21, this transition has been likened to a new Industrial Revolution. The shift from CPU-centric to GPU-focused architectures is fundamentally changing data processing and AI workloads, heralding a trillion-dollar transformation across industries.
NVIDIA’s market capitalization surpassing $3 trillion in 2024 illustrates this shift’s magnitude, driven by soaring demand for AI-capable hardware. This revolution is not just altering computation methods; it’s reshaping entire sectors—from healthcare and finance to manufacturing and entertainment—unlocking unprecedented AI capabilities and applications.
Phases of AI Adoption: Towards Enterprise Transformation
AI adoption is progressing through three overlapping phases, each representing significant shifts in implementation and utilization:
Phase 1: Inception
Hyperscalers deploy AI infrastructure in massive data centers, ranging from 100 MW to over 1,000 MW. These facilities concentrate AI computing power, highlighting the trend of increasing scale as AI gravitates toward power-rich locations.
Phase 2: Distribution
Currently underway, this phase sees AI workloads becoming more distributed. Regional Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) and GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) operate in smaller 5–100 MW data centers, democratizing access to AI resources.
Phase 3: Enterprise Adoption
The next trillion-dollar opportunity lies in widespread enterprise AI transformation. AI capabilities will integrate into businesses of all sizes across various sectors. Today, AI computing power is spread across numerous supercomputers, but access is limited to an elite group. The challenge is making this power accessible to more enterprises, spurring the next wave of AI-driven innovation and growth.
Internet Epochs: The Last 30 Years
Viewing the AI revolution within a broader technological timeline reveals we are in a new era:
Epoch 1: The Birth of the Internet (1960s–1980s)
The internet began as ARPANET, a project funded by the U.S. Department of Defense to connect universities and research institutions, enabling resource sharing and communication over long distances.
Epoch 2: The Emergence of the World Wide Web (1989–1990s)
Tim Berners-Lee introduced the World Wide Web, creating HTTP, HTML, and the first web browser, which transformed the internet into a global information space accessible to the general public.
Epoch 3: Commercialization and the Dot-Com Boom (1990s–Early 2000s)
The internet experienced rapid commercial growth, leading to the dot-com boom, where extensive investment in internet-based companies eventually resulted in a market bubble and subsequent crash due to overvaluation.
Epoch 4: The Rise of Social Media and Mobile Internet (2000s–2010s)
The proliferation of smartphones and the advent of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube revolutionized communication, allowing users to create and share content instantly from anywhere.
Epoch 5: Cloud Computing and Big Data (2010s–Present)
The development of cloud computing and big data analytics provided scalable computing resources and advanced data processing capabilities, enabling businesses to store vast amounts of data and utilize machine learning and AI for insights and innovation.
Epoch 6: Redefining the Future of Technology
This era represents a step change characterized by:
- Accelerated Innovation: Technologies are redefining computing from the silicon architecture upwards. For example, the latest NVIDIA GPUs feature tens of billions of transistors, a scale unimaginable a few years ago.
- Redefining the Internet: The “classic” Internet has reached the end of its useful life, with new research suggesting a move beyond conventional architecture is required
- New Infrastructure Needs: Novel technologies are required to harness disparate resources effectively, supporting human-computer and machine-to-machine (M2M) communication at unprecedented scales.
This shift underscores the transformative nature of AI and quantum computing, with the coming decades promising change comparable to the entire history of the internet to date.
Stelia: Empowering Enterprise to Adopt AI
Amid this revolution, Stelia has now emerged as a leader in AI infrastructure, offering solutions that facilitate widespread and successful AI adoption.
Global Data Mobility Platform
Stelia has developed a globally available data mobility platform, reimagined from the protocol level. Designed to support the massive capacities and complex use cases of AI for enterprises, it addresses challenges like high-volume data transfer and low-latency requirements.
Enabling Technology for CSPs
Stelia provides technologies that enable Cloud Service Providers to connect and leverage AI resources more effectively, extending AI compute power beyond major hyperscalers and contributing to a more accessible AI ecosystem.
New Data Mobility Standard
Recognizing AI operations’ specific demands, Stelia has developed a data mobility standard tailored for AI workloads, aiming to become the preferred method for moving and managing the vast data AI requires.
By addressing these critical needs, Stelia bridges the gap between AI’s potential and the practical challenges of implementing AI at scale across diverse business environments.
Radical innovation Required for Enterprise AI
Stelia’s suite of technologies solves for extending highest performance data mobility beyond the confines of the data center:
- GPU-to-GPU Communication: Enables cross-cluster and cross-continent GPU communication, facilitating global distributed AI computing.
- GPU Orchestration and Assembly: Manages and coordinates GPU resources for optimal performance in complex AI workloads.
- GPU-to-Consumer Connectivity: Bridges high-performance AI compute resources with end-users, democratizing access to advanced computational power.
- Remote Storage Access: Provides efficient access to vast data stores necessary for AI operations.
Stelia is the enabler of Enterprise AI, addressing challenges beyond public clouds—a trillion-dollar opportunity in enterprise data transformation. With expertise in software development, network optimization, and compute resource management, Stelia is uniquely positioned to tackle enterprise AI deployment complexities.
The concept of a “computeless hyperscaler” epitomizes Stelia’s innovative approach, offering hyperscaler-level AI capabilities without massive, centralized compute resources, democratizing access to advanced AI technologies.
Stelia’s Mission: Shaping the AI Future
Stelia’s mission is to shape and lead the AI revolution by providing the infrastructure and connections essential for widespread AI adoption.
• Extensive Partner Network: Collaborating with advanced AI vendors, software enterprises, model builders, and infrastructure partners, Stelia plays a central role in the AI ecosystem.
• Cutting-Edge Compute Partnerships: Aligning with leading technology companies ensures access to state-of-the-art resources.
• Societal Impact: Recognizing that AI and advanced compute capabilities will significantly affect humanity, Stelia is committed to fostering positive societal outcomes.
• Creating a Global Resource: By constructing a global supercomputer accessible to all, Stelia is breaking down barriers to AI adoption, revolutionizing industries, and fostering innovation worldwide.
