Google Cloud is giving Y Combinator startups subsidized access to dedicated clusters of Nvidia Graphics Processing Units and Google Tensor Processing Units to build AI models, as part of the company's efforts to get closer to promising early-stage AI startups in the hopes of developing some of them into businesses that require large amounts of computing.
“We want to wrap startups in a lot of love and warmth early on in their lifecycle and get them used to building and running on Google Cloud Platform,” James Lee, general manager of startups and AI at Google Cloud, said in an interview with TechCrunch. “As long as they stay on Google Cloud, we'll grow with them and be their partner throughout their lifecycle.”
Specifically, Google will provide YC's summer 2024 startups with priority access to a dedicated cluster, as well as $350,000 in cloud credits over two years for each participating startup. The idea is that future unicorns will be excited to build on Google Cloud. Over the past 18 years, 5% of Y Combinator startups have become unicorns valued at more than $1 billion, YC Group partner Diana Hu told TechCrunch, so it's a reasonable bet for Google to bet on this partnership.
“There's a growing expectation that the next generation of startups will probably be decacorns rather than unicorns, and that's exactly what's happening right now,” Hu said. “Cloud providers are still catching up on pricing, but they know that if they get in early, they can ride the wave with them.”
Meanwhile, Y Combinator claims it can attract more AI startups by offering investment and guidance, as well as abundant computing resources. For early-stage AI startups, one issue Hu often hears about is that startups have limited computing resources. While larger companies can sign large, multi-year contracts with cloud providers for GPU access, smaller startups are often left out. Such partnerships are particularly effective when they have dedicated clusters, which is especially important for training AI models.
“GPU and AI workloads are like batch high-performance computing workloads. You don't need servers running all the time, but bursty workloads require lots of servers,” Hu says. “So we have dedicated clusters available for YC companies to use.”
As part of the partnership, Google will also provide YC startups with $12,000 in enhanced support credits and a free year of Google Workspace Business Plus. YC startups will also have access to Google's in-house AI experts through monthly office hours.
Startup accelerators and venture capital firms have increasingly been offering GPU clusters recently. Andreessen Horowitz reportedly has 20,000 GPUs in stock to attract AI startups. Google Cloud and Y Combinator didn't disclose the exact number in the deal, but Hu said it would be enough for YC's foundational model companies to train their models.