The scarcity of computing power in the world of increasingly complex generative AI models opened the doors for AI service clouds, also called neocloud providers offering GPU-as-a-Service (GUPaaS). GPU or Graphic Processing Units are critical for AI training and inference and data analytics.

GPUaaS offers an on-demand, pay-as-you-go model for access to high performance GPUs and enables businesses to train AI models, handle data-intensive tasks and scale faster without the upfront investment in hardware.

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For veteran entrepreneur Sharad Sanghi, the opportunity presented itself in 2023 as he moved out of NTT from his role as CEO of Global Data Centres and Cloud Infrastructure (India) to start over again with Neysa. Sanghi’s previous venture, data centre provider Netmagic was acquired by Japanese telco, NTT.

The Mumbai-based AI acceleration cloud platform recently announced raising $1.2 billion from private equity firm Blackstone and co-investors at a valuation of $1.4 billion. Of this, $600 million was raised as equity capital, with the remaining $600 million in debt financing.

Capital will be key for Neysa to meet the backlog of demands and to be prepared to serve AI hyperscalers (large cloud service providers offering computing power, hardware and infrastructure to train and deploy AI models) and AI frontier labs (research and development companies creating large scale foundation models and AI systems) in India. Apart from infrastructure spending, the capital will also help Neysa offer differentiated services to its clients, as well as close in on strategic acquisitions.

By the time the capital is deployed fully by Neysa, Blackstone........

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