GreaterHeat’s CEO, David Li was at a global AI conference when he sat down for a virtual interview with CXpose.tech. On day two of the four-day conference, something had already caught his eye – the GB200-NVL72 system that supports AI-ready infrastructure with lower processing power and energy consumption.

Inspired by books he had read, David Li knew he wanted to become an entrepreneur, but there hadn’t been any university courses majoring in business. So, he picked subjects that he felt would be useful to society – electrical engineering and economics – and since graduation, the last 10 years have been about  learning to be an entrepreneur.

These days, David has to have his finger on the pulse of AI development, which almost always starts from AI-capable infrastructure like the GB2000 system. He said, “We started with the philosophy of building out infrastructure, which we understand as something that everyone needs and use every day, indirectly.” GreaterHeat also wants to be able to offer choices, and David quipped, “For startup companies, it’s best to look for opportunities in emerging technologies.

“We identified that as Web3.0.”

He shared that during those early days, the organization had encountered its fair share of technical and financial challenges but overcame them all to emerge stronger today. “When we discovered that value was rapidly shifting from Web3.0 to AI, the capabilities we accumulated in the Web3.0 space were reapplied to the AI sector.

“So, we had no hesitation in transitioning,” he said.

Democratizing AI

GreaterHeat came into being after recognizing the region’s potential for technology growth and innovation. David said, “We identified a gap in the artificial intelligence infrastructure market where businesses are looking to integrate AI into their operations.”

With an initial focus on flexible GPU resources and data storage solutions, its goal was simple – to democratize AI, enabling companies of all sizes to leverage the power of AI without the need for substantial upfront investment in hardware and resources.

At the same time, it collaborated with leading technology companies and research institutions to ensure its infrastructure is cutting-edge and capable of supporting a wide range of AI applications from machine learning and data analysis to more complex solutions.

It wants to be able to combine a customer-centric approach, computational resources with technology and consulting services to help B2B customers fully leverage the potential of AI and smoothly transition to adopting AI to drive innovation, efficiency and growth in their industries.

David responded to an Equinix interconnection index that reported a majority of new enterprise digital infrastructure will be consumed as service, by saying that the subscription model is both cost effective, flexible, and allows companies to quickly adopt and adapt to market change. “Companies can expand or reduce their technological capabilities without increasing their financial burden.”

It collaborated with leading technology companies and research institutions to ensure its infrastructure is cutting-edge and capable of supporting a wide range of AI applications from machine learning and data analysis to more complex solutions.

“It also reflects the pace of tech progress. To remain competitive, companies can easily access the latest technologies and activities which are crucial for driving innovation and improving customer experience.”

Early start and growth

The company’s goal is to bring Web3.0 technologies and services to the Southeast Asia (SEA) region and help overseas clients enhance their business efficiency and competitiveness.

“The challenges we have faced include exploring and adopting to a completely unfamiliar market, assembling an international team, understanding our customers, and building trust – all of which needed to be accomplished in a short amount of time due to limited resources at that time,” David said.

He also made an interesting observation about the types of innovations which happen in western geographies like the Silicon Valley in the United states, and the Asia region. “There is a lot of technical innovation in the West, but in the East, for example in Singapore and Hong Kong, there is a lot of business model innovation.”

David described how GreaterHeat has now accumulated six years’ worth of technology and business best practices, as well as fund raising know-how, and efficient capital deployment.

“You need to integrate into one field, the different skills and expertise from technical, operations, and deployment areas. This is crucial especially for the infrastructure industry where there can be a myriad of technical problems and issues.

The company currently has a 100-strong team that spans three locations — Singapore, Hangzhou, and the United States — which makes communication and workflow processes very crucial for collaboration that is productive. David also emphasized the importance of developing automated business and operational processes.

These teams have a combination of AI, AI engineers, and data scientists, as well as front-end developers who can create user-friendly interfaces for users who are not tech or AI-savvy. Also crucial are talents with technology expertise, but also possess a deep understanding of business dynamics and can effectively communicate business language. For example, a recently hired AI solutions director oversees AI solutions and ensures that B2B products they offer actually meet customer needs.

New solution, new market, new plans

David shared Greater Heat’s plans to launch a consumer AI application in the Korean market that is renowned for consumers that prize creativity, self-expression and customization.

Photo by Kampus Production

“Korea has a larger population than Singapore or Malaysia, as well as a culture of creativity. In a way this is a new business model that we are launching, and we selected Korea as our first market to help us verify our business ideas quickly.”

The project which began over six months ago (at the time of interview), is anticipated to launch in the May- June time frame. David’s hope is to successfully verify the business model so as to establish healthy expansion of the business and user base, with a financial revenue target of USD10 million.

Besides this, David shared about building more data centers in Malaysia due to the country’s relatively abundant power resources.