Alternative Clouds Strategy Is Here To Solve Your GenAI Compute Needs

The tech industry is witnessing a significant shift as alternative cloud providers rapidly gain ground. This shift is the result of an ever increasing demand for high-performance GPU compute that drives GenAI systems across the globe. 

Recent developments, such as CoreWeave’s impressive $1.1 billion funding round, shows the interest of the market for these non-mainstream cloud solutions. It makes sense that alternative clouds are becoming more and more popular because they provide a number of attractive features, including improved security and data sovereignty, and most importantly cost efficiency and flexibility. 

In this article we’ll explore why alternative clouds are increasingly appealing to businesses and how they might potentially redefine the future of cloud computing.

Why Choose Alternative Clouds Over the Big Three?

Alternative Clouds are More Cost effective

One of the key reasons alternative cloud providers are taking off is their cost-effectiveness. Traditional cloud giants like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud deliver solid resources, but at a greater price tag. In comparison, alternative clouds such as LambdaLabs, Vast.ai, and RunPod provide lower-cost alternatives without sacrificing quality.

Let’s take CoreWeave for instance: renting an NVIDIA A100 80GB PCIe GPU (popular choice for model training and inferencing) from CoreWeave costs $2.21 per hour, totaling about $1,591 per month. In comparison, the same GPU on Azure costs $3.69 per hour, or $2,656 per month. This, of course, makes CoreWeave especially appealing to startups and small businesses trying to minimize their cloud spend. Statistics show that compute accounts for more than 70% of the operational costs during the lifecycle of a generative AI application over a period of three years. Naturally, optimizing compute spending thus becomes a priority for the project’s cost viability.

Another advantage alternative cloud providers offer is flexible pricing models. From pay-as-you-go options to predictable monthly billing and long term capacity reservations, these models allow companies to scale their cloud usage without facing extra costs.

Customization Possibilities 

Alternative cloud providers often offer customized solutions for niche businesses or use cases. LambdaLabs, for example, is carving out a market niche by portraying itself as “The AI Developer Cloud”. This focus on specific markets helps alternative providers to give highly personalized services that the big three giants do not offer.

From the users’ perspective, these customized cloud environments are a huge advantage. Businesses can fine-tune their cloud infrastructure to meet their individual needs, which can be more difficult with larger providers' limiting offers. This customization improves performance, increases efficiency, and provides a more personalized end-user experience.

Additional Security and Data Ownership

Data security remains a big concern for businesses when using GenAI solutions in production. Alternative cloud providers often prioritize these security by offering well grounded security features, especially when it comes to compliance with regional data protection regulations. For example providers like OVHcloud and Hetzner, based in Europe, ensure that data resides within specific geographic boundaries, complying with stringent data privacy laws such as GDPR.

The focus on security and compliance is especially attractive to companies dealing with regulated markets like government, finance, and healthcare. With alternative clouds, these companies can reduce risks, improve data control, and guarantee compliance with national and international laws.

Less Vendor Lock-In

Vendor lock-in is another big concern for many companies that depend on big cloud providers. Depending on a single supplier makes relocation plans more difficult, restricts flexibility, and raises expenses. A practical response to this situation is making multi-cloud strategies. With this, alternative cloud providers minimize dependence on a single source.

For businesses, it’s about increased resilience, flexibility, and negotiating power. By spreading their cloud infrastructure among different clouds, companies can use the greatest features of cloud environments without being restricted to a single provider. This, of course, helps making migration and integration easier.

Superior Customer Service

Better customer support and service are some of the ways that alternative cloud providers set themselves apart from the competition. Alternative clouds typically provide more individualized and responsive customer service than the automated and often impersonal support systems of larger providers. 

This superior customer service is important for companies that want prompt and efficient resolutions to their technical problems and direction when it comes to streamlining their cloud architecture.

Best Alternative Cloud Providers

Here’s a short list of Alternative Cloud Providers worth considering: 

LambdaLabs

Specialization: GPU cloud services for AI and machine learning.

GPU Types: Offers high-performance GPUs such as Nvidia H100s, A100s, and RTX 4090s.

Strengths: Known for competitive pricing and tailored services for AI research and development.

Vast.ai

Specialization: Decentralized GPU rental marketplace.

GPU Types: Supports all major consumer-grade and industrial GPUs.

Strengths: Cost-efficient, flexible GPU rental leveraging idle computing power.

RunPod

Specialization: On-demand and spot GPU availability on both secure and community cloud.

GPU Types: Provides the latest GPUs compatible with LLM workloads.

Strengths: User-friendly interface and strong performance for AI, machine learning, and data science. Multiple data centers across US, CA and EU. Also has built-in genAI focused features.

OVHcloud

Specialization: European cloud service provider with a focus on data privacy and security.

GPU Types: Nvidia H100, A100, L40S and L4.

Strengths: Strong presence in Europe with a focus on data privacy and security. Dedicated baremetals and VPS options are also available in addition to their public cloud.

CoreWeave

Specialization: High-performance cloud infrastructure for compute-intensive applications.

GPU Types: H100, A100, A40, A600, etc.

Strengths: High-performance computing solutions with strong data privacy and security measures.

ScaleGenAI’s Next-Gen Universal Compute Infrastructure for GenAI

We at ScaleGenAI help our customers take advantage of the cost-effective nature of alternative clouds by working with a variety of cloud providers abstracting all the complexities underneath.

ScaleGenAI’s Universal Compute Infrastructure for AI (UCAI) is an orchestration layer designed to address the critical challenges in deploying and scaling AI workloads. UCAI offers a service-agnostic API that integrates seamlessly with major AI frameworks like OpenAI, HuggingFace, and PyTorch, ensuring efficient, cost-effective, and scalable access to GPU resources across multiple cloud providers and data centers. Think of UCAI as an AI Supercloud.

Key Features:

1. Service-Agnostic API: Provides a unified API that is compatible with various AI frameworks, supports accelerators from multiple OEMs (Nvidia, Intel, AMD etc.), and supports multiple algorithmic approaches. Hence, simplifying deployment and management without locking users into specific service providers.
   
   

2. Cost Reduction: Achieves a 3x-6x decrease in compute costs compared to traditional cloud services by optimizing resource allocation, along with spot instance automation and heterogeneous cluster support.
   
   

3. Scalability: Rapidly provisions GPU resources across 14+ cloud providers and over 100 data centers, supporting seamless expansion of AI workloads to meet increasing demands.
   
   

4. Reliability and Performance: Ensures high reliability and performance with strict Service Level Agreements (SLAs), guaranteeing consistent throughput and uptime for mission-critical AI applications.
   
   

5. Compliance and Data Jurisdiction: Deployments can be restricted to certain geographical regions, ensuring data jurisdiction requirements are met.

ScaleGenAI ensures that performance metrics such as TPS (Tokens per Second) are optimized, regardless of the cloud provider. This means that businesses using alternative clouds can still achieve high performance and efficiency in their LLM operations.

In summary, ScaleGenAI’s Universal Compute Infrastructure for AI (UCAI) offers a comprehensive solution that addresses the high costs, scalability issues, vendor lock-in, configuration complexities, reliability concerns, and compliance challenges associated with AI infrastructure. By providing a unified, scalable, and cost-effective platform, UCAI empowers organizations to deploy and manage AI workloads efficiently and effectively. For more detailed information, visit ScaleGenAI.

Conclusion

Summing up, the growth of alternative clouds is an appealing option for businesses looking for price cuts, flexibility, and specialized services beyond what the major three cloud providers offer. Alternative clouds with their regional compliance, and personalized solutions, are becoming increasingly appealing to businesses looking to maximize their cloud strategies.

Multi-cloud, multi-accelerator orchestration from ScaleGenAI is perfect for the companies which want to grasp the advantages of alternative cloud providers, without actually building their own managed service to handle this cross-cloud operation. ScaleGenAI guarantees that your LLM operations are secure, cost-effective, and compliant with local laws by interacting with a variety of cloud providers straightforwardly, all while retaining excellent performance.