Google Cloud Now Has Dedicated Nvidia GPU Cluster for Y Combinator Startups

Google Cloud is giving Y Combinator startups access to a dedicated, subsidized cluster of Nvidia graphics processing units and Google tensor processing units to build AI models. It’s part of Google Cloud’s effort to cozy up to promising early-stage AI startups in the hopes that some of them will grow into massive, compute-hungry enterprises.

“We want to give them a lot of love and warmth early in their lifecycle so they can get a feel for building and working on the Google Cloud platform,” Google Cloud’s general manager of startups and AI business James Lee told TechCrunch. “As they stay, we grow with them and become their partner throughout their lifecycle.”

Specifically, Google will provide a dedicated cluster with priority access to YC Summer 2024 startups, along with $350,000 in cloud credits over two years for each participating startup. The idea is that the future unicorn will fall in love with building on Google Cloud. Five percent of Y Combinator startups have become unicorns with valuations exceeding $1 billion over the past 18 years, YC Group partner Diana Hu tells TechCrunch, so Google has a decent shot at securing this partnership.

“There’s a lot of excitement that the next generation of startups will probably not just be unicorns but decacorns, and they’re emerging right now,” Hu said. “Cloud providers are still playing catch-up on pricing, but they know that if you catch them early, you’ll ride the wave.”

Y Combinator, on the other hand, says it can attract more AI startups to apply by offering generous computing resources along with investment and guidance. Hu says one of the most common problems he sees with early-stage AI startups is that they’re limited in terms of computing power. Large enterprises can strike multi-year, massive deals with cloud providers for GPU access, but small startups are often left out in the cold. He says partnerships like these make a big difference, especially when you have a dedicated cluster — especially important for training AI models.

“For GPU and AI workloads, they’re more like high-performance compute workloads in batches. You don’t need the server to be running all the time, but you do need a lot of them for unstable workloads,” Hu said. “So we have a dedicated cluster that YC companies can just use.”

As part of the partnership, Google will also offer YC startups $12,000 in Enhanced Support credits and a free year of Google Workspace Business Plus. YC startups can also connect with Google’s in-house AI experts during monthly office hours.

Startup accelerators and venture capital firms are increasingly offering GPU clusters. Andreessen Horowitz reportedly has a stash of 20,000 GPUs to attract AI startups. Google Cloud and Y Combinator didn’t disclose the exact number in the deal, but Hu says it’s more than enough for YC’s core modeling firms to train models.