For the purpose of developing artificial intelligence models, TechCrunch reports that Google Cloud is giving Y Combinator businesses access to a cluster of Nvidia GPUs and Google tensor processing units.
Y Combinator is a business accelerator and venture financing organization based in Mountain View, California.
Over the course of two years, Google will give $350,000 in cloud credits to a chosen set of entrepreneurs. According to the report, the goal is to support these firms’ growth and help them establish long-term partnerships with Google Cloud.
“We want to surround them with a lot of love and warmth early in their lifecycle so they get familiarized with building and working on the Google Cloud Platform,” Google Cloud’s James Lee told TechCrunch. “As they stick around, we grow as they grow, and we become a partner of theirs throughout their lifecycle.”
This strategy is not unique to Y Combinator among venture capital firms.
To secure deals for companies, Andreessen Horowitz has acquired hundreds of GPUs, many of which are from Nvidia.
Many of the businesses in its portfolio have rented out the GPUs from the venture capital firm, which is currently managing $42 billion in assets. Andreessen Horowitz, or A16z, eventually wants to grow the business, which it refers to as “oxygen,” to over 20,000 GPUs.