Paperspace

Paperspace provides a cloud computing platform focused on simplifying access to GPU-accelerated infrastructure for developing, training, and deploying artificial intelligence and machine learning applications. The company was founded in 2014 by Dillon Erb, Daniel Kobran, and Joey Santo, and is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. The founders, who met while studying for their Master of Architecture degrees at the University of Michigan, identified a significant barrier for developers and researchers in the high cost and complexity of accessing powerful GPU hardware. Their architectural background, with its emphasis on digital computation and structural simulation, informed their understanding of the potential for GPUs beyond visual applications into machine learning.

The company's initial offering was a user-friendly, web-based platform for launching GPU-powered virtual machines, a departure from the complex command-line interfaces common at the time. This aimed to democratize high-performance computing for a broad audience, from individual developers and startups to large enterprises and academic institutions. Paperspace's business model is centered on providing cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS), generating revenue through hourly and monthly billing for its various products. Customers are charged for compute resources, storage, and public IP addresses, with a focus on straightforward, predictable pricing.

A key milestone in the company's history was its participation in the Y Combinator accelerator program in 2015, which helped secure early-stage funding from notable investors like Initialized Capital and Intel Capital. A significant evolution of their product line was the introduction of the Gradient platform, which streamlined the entire machine learning workflow from experimentation to production deployment. The product suite includes several key components: 'Machines' offers GPU-powered virtual machines; 'Notebooks' provides a web-based Jupyter IDE for collaborative development; 'Workflows' automates ML tasks to create production pipelines; and 'Deployments' functions as a containers-as-a-service for serving models. On July 6, 2023, DigitalOcean acquired Paperspace for $111 million in cash, integrating Paperspace's specialized AI/ML infrastructure into its broader cloud platform to better serve startups and small to medium-sized businesses. Following the acquisition, Paperspace operates as a business unit within DigitalOcean, with its brand and products being consolidated under the DigitalOcean umbrella.

Keywords: cloud computing, GPU infrastructure, machine learning development, AI applications, virtual machines, MLOps, deep learning platform, cloud AI, GPU-as-a-service, neural networks, data science platform, AI model deployment, developer tools, high-performance computing, cloud desktops, Gradient platform, Jupyter notebooks, container service, DigitalOcean, Dillon Erb, Daniel Kobran, Y Combinator, AI startups, scalable computing, cloud infrastructure