Cloud computing transforms a company’s ability to innovate—anywhere, anytime, and for companies of any size. Startups seize and scale on these cloud benefits, driving a wealth of new applications for business and consumer technologies.
For many years, the default cloud provider of choice was Amazon Web Services (AWS), but the landscape is changing fast. Startups increasingly use a combination of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and other vendors to scale their growing businesses.
At Oracle for Startups, we’ve seen a big increase in startups moving workloads from AWS and other clouds to OCI, and I expect that to grow. We’ve also seen startups adopt a multicloud strategy, and I also expect that to grow. The clouds will play to their strengths, with OCI being particularly strong in high performance compute workloads like AI and machine learning, as well as strong industry-focused cloud expertise and solutions.
High performance workloads shine on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Take, for instance, Aleph Alpha, who chose Oracle over AWS to run their GPT-3-like large language models. The fast-growing startup is training a 13 billion parameter AI model on OCI using Nvidia’s most powerful GPUs connected by high-speed networking. A second Aleph Alpha model holds 200 billion parameters.
Aindra Systems, an AI-based computational pathology platform, helps diagnose cervical cancer faster, especially for remote locations. The startup uses OCI and Nvidia GPUs to train their models. Cofounder Adarsh Natarajan wanted to re-imagine cervical cancer screenings and treatments, and he needed a high-performance cloud: “The data sets are large, and the Oracle Cloud helps us train the data very quickly.”
Look for Oracle’s continued advancements in high performance computing to push AI capabilities and open possibilities for a vast array of applications and industries. And look for more startups to move these compute-intensive workloads off AWS to OCI.
Flexibility, portability, and choice drive need for multicloud
Multicloud isn’t a new concept for enterprises, but it is just gaining ground with startups. It might seem counterintuitive, but more and more startups are embracing a multicloud strategy for advantages of flexibility, portability, and choice.
Scaleup companies, especially SaaS startups, need to deploy on their client’s preferred cloud. Snapper Future Tech CTO Kamlesh Nagware agrees, “Because blockchain goes beyond a single enterprise to bring multiple entities together on a single network, we need to support customers that run on a variety of different cloud platforms.” Snapper Future Tech is using OCI and Oracle Blockchain.
Multicloud is aided by container-based architecture and orchestration solutions like Kubernetes, which make moving workloads between clouds much easier.
Dr. Abdulrahman Alsultan, Cofounder and CEO of Awini, says “We wanted to change our solution architecture from VM-based to containers-based architecture, as the latter provides more control and efficient operations. And OCI provides managed Kubernetes services, which gave us the freedom to design our solution the way we see fit.”
Molecula Founder and CEO HO Maycotte predicts, “Erasing the lines between clouds will become a number one prority in the next five years, and Oracle could emerge as the neutral leader in this space and continue to dominate in both database and applications.”
Oracle’s industry cloud expertise is a win for startups
Industry-specific solutions are the next big thing in cloud, and Oracle is uniquely positioned to lead. Many startups have joined Oracle for Startups for our expertise and solutions in industries like financial services and healthcare. The result is stronger technology solutions and increased revenue opportunities.
Quant Networks, provider of universal DLT Interoperability for enterprise, develops on OCI and Oracle Blockchain for financial services clients like SIA and KPMG. CEO Gilbert Verdian notes Oracle’s expertise, agility and openness: “It’s refreshing. AWS is a bit more proprietary. You have to use a lot of AWS versions of features and products…Oracle’s approach is more compatibility and backwards compatible with enterprise environments in our experience.”
CogniCor helps wealth firms and banks reduce internal calls and improve service using its AI-driven digital assistant. They trained their models on AWS, but decided Oracle was more efficient and faster. The startup was introduced to an Oracle financial services customer and won the business, besting Salesforce in the co-sell effort. Another win-win of working with an industry-focused cloud provider.
Healthcare startup NeuralMed’s AI and machine learning platform triages patients’ X-rays more quickly to prioritize the sickest patients’ scans. Cofounder Anthony Eigier says, “Shortly after joining the Oracle startup program, I was talking to the entire Brazil sales team for healthcare, and they were introducing us to healthcare clients. It gives us credibility.”
The future is about win-win partnerships
Meeting a startup’s unique needs to help them build and scale is our top priority. Whether a startup runs full stack on OCI or multicloud, we want to support them to scale and succeed. Indeed, multicloud means that startups in our program are also using our competitor’s products, but I really believe in the mutual benefits of the virtuous cycle. If these startups are successful, we’re successful, and we work hard to make that win-win scenario happen by encouraging flexibility, transparency and trust in Oracle products and people.
For a startup, it’s about future-proofing your technology by having the cloud providers that will allow you to scale without technology friction. It’s about flexibility, ubiquity, and freedom. And it’s about a changing cloud landscape that will see AWS lose ground as clouds play to their strengths and multicloud becomes our reality.