Groq® and Earth Wind & Power to Build AI Compute Center for Europe in Norway that May Rival Tech Giant Scale

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Apr 22, 2024, 13:08 ET

Leader in Real-time AI Inference on Track to Deliver 50% of the World's Inference Compute Capacity via GroqCloud™ by End of 2025

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 22, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Groq, the only provider of real-time AI inference solutions for generative AI (GenAI), has signed a Letter of Intent with Earth Wind & Power to develop the first European vertically-integrated AI Compute Center, located in Norway. The second deal of its kind from Groq in the last two months, the deployment of the Groq LPU™ Inference Engine in Norway will provide Norwegians, European and NATO-allied countries with the lowest cost, most energy-efficient, scalable access to inference compute – the specific type of compute needed as the world shifts from training to powering GenAI applications. This AI Compute Center will also ignite the generative age economy in Norway and the EU by powering GenAI solutions and providing investors with an early opportunity to participate in the inference market.

Groq® and Earth Wind & Power to build AI Compute Center for Europe in Norway, putting Groq on track to deliver 50% of the world’s inference compute capacity via GroqCloud™ by the end of 2025.

In accordance with the terms of the Letter of Intent, Groq has committed to deploy and operate 21,600 LPUs at Earth Wind & Power's AI Compute Center in 2024, with the option to increase this number to 129,600 LPUs in 2025.

"Besides the size, what makes this deployment particularly exciting is that it will require a fraction of the power to run vs. a GPU cluster. GPUs are notoriously thirsty for power, often requiring as much power as the average household per chip. LPUs use as little as a tenth as much power," said Groq CEO and Founder Jonathan Ross. "The AI Compute Center in Norway will provide enough generative AI inference capacity to satisfy most of the needs of the country, and also offer European developers access to GDPR compliant inference infrastructure at the same scale that historically has only been available to US tech companies. This is just the start though, by the end of 2025 we intend to deploy more than 1.5 million LPUs world-wide, helping to democratize access to generative AI."

For comparison, tech giants Meta and Microsoft are estimated to have deployed around 150,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs each, world-wide.

"It has become increasingly clear that the future is AI, which is why we are moving quickly to make inference compute accessible to developers, enterprises, and government entities who are at the cutting edge of GenAI in Norway and across Europe," said Earth Wind & Power Co-Founder Ingvil Smines Tybring-Gjedde. "However, making AI progress can only happen while protecting energy resources and costs for Norwegian and EU citizens. Groq is the ideal partner to us in this as its LPU™ Inference Engine is the only solution available built to do just that. Groq and Earth Wind & Power also share the ethos that AI can and will play a significant role in ensuring free and fair elections around the globe and supporting the Ukrainian people in their fight for freedom. We look forward to working closely with Norwegian and NATO experts who are leading these efforts using GenAI today, as well as realizing the expected economic benefits for Norway."

The signing took place Tuesday, April 16 at Groq office in Palo Alto, home to the GroqCloud team, with Earth Wind & Power and Norwegian business delegations in attendance. The day prior, H.R.H. Crown Prince Haakon of Norway and Jonathan Ross took the stage during the Business Norway event at the San Francisco Ferry Building which discussed the future of technology and AI. Ross was joined by Venture Capitalist Bill Tai and the Norway Minister of Digitalization Karianne Oldernes Tung for a conversation moderated by Tybring-Gjedde about the impacts of AI and the big-picture changes it may bring with an emphasis on business perspectives. Tai closed the session by noting the world "won't have enough compute unless technologies like [Groq] come into play."

About Groq
Groq® is a real-time AI inference company and the creator of the LPU™ Inference Engine, the fastest language processing accelerator on the market. It is architected from the ground up to achieve low latency, energy-efficient, and repeatable inference performance at scale. Customers rely on the LPU Inference Engine as an end-to-end solution for running Large Language Models and other GenAI applications at 10x the speed. Access to the LPU Inference Engine is available through GroqCloud via an API with public and private cloud options. Jonathan Ross, inventor of the Google Tensor Processing Unit, founded Groq to preserve human agency while building the AI economy. Experience Groq speed for yourself at groq.com.

About Earth Wind & Power

Earth Wind & Power (EWP) provides a sustainable solution for powering data centers by utilizing excess energy from wind, solar, hydro, geo-thermal and gas to cater for the increased computing power demand – without any negative impact on existing electricity grids. The company positions scalable modular data center units at local power production facilities around the world, taking advantage of the most energy-efficient technologies to utilize the excess energy on site for producing computing power when no other offtake is commercially viable, or when demand and energy prices are low. Co-Founded by Former Norwegian Minister of National Public Security and Deputy Minister of Petroleum and Energy, Ingvil Smines Tybring-Gjedde. EWP has a strong team of pioneers from wind and solar industries as well as international E&P and government. Visit www.ewp.no.

Media Contact for Groq
Megan Hartwick
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SOURCE Groq