Clarifai, once known as a young computer vision startup working with the Department of Defense on its controversial project Maven, has been embroiled in questionable ideas about AI ethics for years before Silicon Valley came to its defense. He has distanced himself from his early days as a supporter of this, and has become interested in the development of autonomous weapons. Technology and potential cyber breaches from Russia.
In recent years, the company has focused on building AI tools for enterprise and government customers. Now, the company has revealed the latest chapter in its trajectory, the ability for users to orchestrate or coordinate compute and resources across all computing sources from a single control panel.
Washington, DC-based Clarifai announced today at AWS re:invent that its vendor-neutral AI lifecycle platform manages and allocates computing resources to run workflows based on factors such as cost and performance. , announced that you can now automate your optimizations all in one platform. Matthew Zeiler, founder and CEO of Clarifai, told TechCrunch that this disaggregation will allow customers to scale AI more efficiently while making better use of the computing resources they have.
“This is really exciting for us and will give us a whole new entry point into the market,” Seiler said. Works with the company's existing stack.
The company released its Control Center dashboard in October. This allows businesses to view their compute sources, whether they are stored in the cloud or on on-premises machines, all on one platform. Today's announcement adds another layer of functionality to the system.
“Customers can manage their various clusters, whether they are from a cloud provider or have their own bare metal machines, all from one place,” Zeiler said. “You can connect any of these in a secure way, and you can also connect multiple of each.”
One of the key ways Clarifai helps streamline costs and resources is the platform's ability to bundle smaller AI models from a variety of sources, giving customers the opportunity to better control their computing resources. says Zeiler.
“When we talked to companies, that's what they care about right now,” Seiler said. “When it comes to AI, the cost of computing is very high, and this kind of solution helps you manage it in one wave and one set of tools.”
Clarifai was founded by Zeiler in 2013 and initially focused on computer vision. The company has since expanded into a vendor-agnostic full-stack AI tools provider, helping enterprise customers with tasks such as data labeling, AI model training, and AI workflows.
The startup has helped build more than 1.5 million AI models and counts companies like OpenTable, Siemens, and Canva among its customers as customers.
The company has raised over $100 million in VC funding. Clarify most recently raised $60 million in a 2021 round led by NEA, valuing the company at $775 million, according to PitchBook data. The company has also received backing from VCs such as USV, Menlo Ventures, and Lux Capital.