Andreessen Horowitz helps founders meet their compute needs with its “Oxygen” private GPU cluster.

Andreessen Horowitz has a large cluster of Nvidia H100 GPUs which can be helping a portfolio of artificial intelligence startups meet their computing needs, the enterprise capital firm confirmed for the primary time on Wednesday. The program, called “Oxygen,” allows portfolio firms to coach or operate AI models without negotiating market rates.

A16Z’s Oxygen cluster gives startups a respiration space, so to talk, to compete with larger tech firms – like Google, Meta and Microsoft – in constructing large AI models. For several years, these firms have been engaged in a bidding war for AI industry standard GPUs, especially the H100, often winning contracts by promising larger and longer contracts. This leaves many AI startups out within the cold as they might not have the opportunity to tackle the massive contracts needed to secure GPUs, unlike the OpenAI and Anthropics of the world.

“It started with the realization that many of the AI ​​developers we serve every day had a common problem: We found ourselves in the middle of a supply crisis when the processing power of the Nvidia H100 card was in short supply,” said A16Z partner Anjney Midha, who helped create this system Oxygen in a podcast transcript provided to TechCrunch. “As startups, large clouds de-prioritized them in favor of larger customers, which was really difficult for them.”

Infrastructure can be a superb way for A16Z to draw latest startups. Companies constructing AI models often need unlimited access to very large compute clusters for brief training runs, but this isn’t any longer needed once the models are trained. Inferring AI models typically requires less computation than training, unless the usage of the AI ​​model explodes. A16Z’s Oxygen cluster gives startups the flexibleness to have access to GPUs once they need them and not using a long-term commitment to a cloud provider or an enormous outlay of cash. Instead, they provide A16Z a stake in their business in exchange for (amongst other things) low GPU rental prices.

But A16Z aren’t the one investors who promise startup founders GPUs along with financial capital and guidance in exchange for shares in their firms. Investment partners Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross offer their startups access to a 4000 GPU cluster in accordance with Forbes, it was named the Andromeda Cluster. Y Combinator also offers startups a GPU cluster for training purposes through partnerships with various cloud service providers, most recently Google Cloud.

A spokesman for Andreessen Horowitz declined to comment on the dimensions of the Oxygen cluster, nonetheless A16Z could have the most important GPU war chest of any enterprise capital firm. Information in July it said Oxygen could contain greater than 20,000 GPUs.

At one point within the podcast, Midha claims that the Oxygen cluster could ease the pressure on AI startups to boost funds at inflated valuations to pay their computing bills. This is one other way oxygen advantages A16Z. Instead of investing more in a startup so it may buy GPUs from, say, Microsoft, A16Z can offer just the GPUs and invest at a cheaper price.

A16Z sees oxygen as a core value proposition for its startups, which can proceed to thrive so long as the AI ​​boom continues as predicted. This is probably going why the startup made the large investments required to secure these chips.