Armada is the hyperscaler for the edge. We are taking the most powerful AI models and we're moving them to the edge faster, better, cheaper and more flexibly than anybody else, and we do that with modular AI factories that can be deployed literally anywhere in the world. We started the company working with SpaceX. We are the first mover when it comes to the infrastructure, and that partnership works really well because we complement the connectivity with the infrastructure and the AI. We announced recently a partnership with Skyo. We announced another one with OpenAI, taking their models to the edge for the first time. So partnerships are a key part of our strategy. We were the first modular data center ever to be deployed in the middle of the desert in Saudi Arabia with the Ramco, working with Microsoft. In a few years, what's going to happen is either the world is going to be running on the US AI stack or it's going to be running on the Chinese AI stack. I don't want to live in a world where, you know, the world's running on the Chinese AI stack, causing all that information to go back to China. SpaceX is talking about with Starship going to the moon. You're going to need compute, especially as you start to think about Optimus robots building, you know, bases on the moon. So you're going to see data centers in space. And I'm sure we're definitely going to be a part of it.
Dan Wright, welcome to Sourcery.
Great to be here. Thanks, Molly.
Well, we're at the Reagan National Library. Here we are.
This is your first time here?
No, this is actually probably my fifth time. Fifth straight year at RNDF.
Okay. And what's it like? This is my first time.
But it's inspiring. You hear from some of the top minds in the DoD and some of the top entrepreneurs. And it's a great place to meet a lot of people in a very short amount of time. Just over really a day and a half, you can meet tons and tons of people that are working on critical problems for the country.
I know. I was walking in, ran into Palmer Luckey, saw, you know, this like huge event, huge breakfast right under Air Force One. It's pretty special. Um, so for people that don't know what Armada is, obviously I know we've had many interviews together, but what is Armada?
So Armada is the hyperscaler for the edge. We are taking the most powerful AI models and we're moving them to the edge faster, better, cheaper, and more flexibly than anybody else. And we do that with modular AI factories that can be deployed literally anywhere in the world.
AI factories have become a hot topic.
It's a trillion dollar question now with AI spend.
What do you think the state of the market is for AI infrastructure?
I mean, we are going through a generational boom with AI. We're seeing that with these big, you know, AI labs, the foundation model companies to this point. That's really impacted, you know, consumers with ChatGPT and Grok and now knowledge workers. Um, but what we're really seeing now at Armada is that those really powerful models are starting to be applied to operations on the ground at the edge. And I think that's the next big shift that we're going to have to see is that these models, which are doing wonders for, you know, consumers and for knowledge workers, they need to be put in the hands of the people who really need them when you have to make split-second decisions that sometimes impact life and death or billions of dollars.
And how does your view of modular on-demand AI data centers differ from these huge large-scale data centers?
So when you think about the huge large data centers, that's sort of like an extension of what we've been doing, the cloud, right? We, to this point, we've had these big hyperscale data centers. Today they cover about 30% of the world. That means 70% of the world does not have access to AI. And so the mission of Armada is to bridge the digital divide and fill that gap. We're going to continue to need these big hyperscale data centers for the cloud and extending that, but those take a long time. It's construction, it's permitting, it's years. There's, you know, supply chain issues. There's all sorts of issues with that. What is really nice is rather than taking years, you can put these anywhere in a matter of a small number of months, and they're mobile. And so if needs change, you can move them around. And so where we see our role is to rapidly extend the benefit of all these models that have been trained in the cloud, because the cloud is going to continue to be really important, but then allowing them to reach these locations that have never been able to be reached before through these modular AI factories that could be deployed again faster, cheaper, more flexibly than any other way.
So you've raised over $200 million to date. Um, you have pretty much ascended quite quickly with your partnerships and strategic investors. Who are some of the people that you work with?
Yeah, so we started the company working with SpaceX, and they've continued to be a great partner for us. And what that means is that as SpaceX rolls out throughout the world, and you know, most people don't know, five years ago they hadn't even launched Starlink. Now it's in 150 countries, and it's continuing to grow every week. We are the first mover when it comes to the infrastructure, and that partnership works really well because we complement the connectivity with the infrastructure and the AI. On the other hand, we also partner with the big cloud providers like Microsoft, extending all of these really powerful models to the edge. Even Azure Stack, which is a piece of hardware that Microsoft has developed, it can go in the Galleon. So we've given it a home, and we've extended all the benefits of that to the edge.
And then there's lots of others. We announced recently a partnership with Skyo. We announced another one with OpenAI, taking their models to the edge for the first time. So partnerships are a key part of our strategy. And it's again taking these capabilities, bringing them all together at the edge in a way that is turnkey for the people that are really just trying to solve the most important problems on the ground.
I think those are awesome. But one of the most, I think, like interesting things about Armada is just the extreme environments that you work in. Can you lay out as many as possible?
Yeah. When we say the edge, we really mean it. And I'll just give a few recent examples. So just this week, we announced that we did the first offshore edge computing that the Navy's ever done.
Um, we did that as part of the UNOSS exercise this year, running cutting-edge applications like Minotaur, Maven. There was an Azure Stack in there, bringing that all together at the edge in the belly of an aircraft carrier. You can run these things in the middle of the ocean, and then if you want to deploy it, you can put it in a C-17, C-130. So this edge is really being redefined. And then another example is the hottest temperatures in the world. We were the first modular data center ever to be deployed in the middle of the summer in the desert in Saudi Arabia with the Ramco, working with Microsoft. And then also on the flip side, we were deployed in basically the Arctic with the state of Alaska, the first modular data center ever in Alaska, helping to cut the time to process large amounts of data from drones from 30 hours to real time in order to better respond to avalanches and floods and other types of natural disasters.
And you go on site for all of these, right?
We always are at the edge. It's funny. I get messages from our team all the time, and it's like the most crazy places you can imagine. And the edge is going to continue to get, you know, redefined. I get calls, literally, I was on the call with somebody and they're like, 'Hey, can we get one of these in Antarctica?' I'm like, 'Well, yeah, Starlink's live in Antarctica. No reason why we can't do that.'
Obviously, data center in space is the new hotness everybody's talking about. What's the deal with that? So, are you going to get these in space? They are modular.
I mean, the edge continuing to expand. I mean, this is actually a debate that we have in terms of how soon it's going to happen, but it's definitely going to happen. Data centers in space is coming, and it makes sense, right? If you think about, and you know, a lot of this is public, but what SpaceX is talking about with Starship, you know, going to the moon, you're going to need compute, especially as you start to think about Optimus robots building, you know, bases on the moon, later Mars. You're going to need large amounts of compute. Not to mention a lot of the things that we do here on Earth, you're going to want to do there in space, and it's a lot more efficient to do it, especially in hostile environments, if you can automate more of that, things like mining, for example.
And so you're going to have data centers in space, and I'm sure we're definitely going to be a part of it.
