Constellation ShortList™ AI Clouds with Compute Roots

The rise of AI since 2023 has driven an investment peak in IaaS data centers, enabling the running of generative AI workloads. And while all pre-AI established IaaS vendors provide AI-related services, there has been room for new entrants into the overall IaaS market, specialized in AI workloads only, with a heavy focus on model training. 

The vendors on this shortlist are not resting on providing just compute infrastructure; they are steadily expanding their offerings to include other key IT resources, most prominently networking and storage. Another key focus is geographic expansion, as enterprises are increasingly looking to sovereign cloud for their AI workloads.

Threshold Criteria

Constellation considers the following criteria for these solutions:

• Available on at least two continents 
• A viable financial model to operate the business for the next 6-8 quarters 
• Over 1000 paying customers 
• More than 5 data center locations and adding at least one new location per quarter 
• At least 4 machine/instance sizes 
• Available or planned stack extensions beyond compute 
• Strong partnerships with established compute hardware vendors 
• Strong partnerships with key AI model providers 
• Widely accepted security and privacy certifications 

• Ability to run dedicated/secure government loads on at least 3 continents

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  The Constellation ShortList

  Constellation evaluates more than 20 solutions categorized in this market. This Constellation ShortList is determined by client inquiries, partner conversations, customer references, vendor selection projects, market share and internal research.