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Posted by igrunert 10 hours ago

Oxide raises $200M Series C(oxide.computer)
485 points | 245 commentspage 2
arjie 5 hours ago|
I get the whole x CPUs y RAM story (it's akin to how clouds sell) and that often makes sense in the cloud, but when managing my datacenter operations a big constraining point is compute / kW. At 30 A / 208 V at 85% efficiency I've got 5 kW to work with per cabinet. If I'm putting in low core density slow machines I've got to do a lot more management than if I'm using my Epyc 9755 based servers. This is a practical constraint not just a theoretical "oh I want the latest and greatest". It's just that I can't really justify using up 4U and a kW on an Epyc 7003 series. The compute density just isn't there for the power use. The old chips are practically deadweight.

Anyway, I'm glad to hear of the raise because the team seems exceptional (judging by the posts you guys write and they have written prior to the company) and I love work in this area that simplifies hardware management. Good stuff, good luck, and congratulations!

kristjansson 5 hours ago|
> 5 kW to work with per cabinet

have my expectations been shot by reading too much about Nvidia's latest and greatest, or does this seem quite low?

tuetuopay 13 minutes ago|||
Having worked in the space, 6kVA is the norm from 10-15 years ago, 12kVA is the standard for regular compute workloads. With HPC/AI all bets are off though.
arjie 4 hours ago||||
No, your expectations are not wrong. I'm a small business. A fully stacked AI/GPU cabinet is multiples of this. A single GH200 based server will have 2x2.7 kW power supplies in a 1U form factor. As you can imagine, I am not running a cabinet full of such servers. But you don't need AI power requirements to do normal software. And there's lots of normal software to do!
shrubble 4 hours ago|||
That’s standard practice in many data centers; but you can often pay more to get more amps delivered to your rack.
yla92 9 hours ago||
Has anyone purchased/enquired about an Oxide rack or currently running one ? any info on pricing ?
Aurornis 8 hours ago||
Prices are not public, but comments over the years have hinted it’s in the $500K to $1mm range.

Their hardware is multiple generations behind at this point, however. I wonder if they’re starting to reduce the price because it’s hard to justify paying so much for old hardware. They could just be targeting customers who don’t care as much about performance or efficiency as they do the software stack.

zozbot234 8 hours ago||
Being a few generations behind is kinda par for the course for any server hardware that's put in production, this is not a gaming PC build. Hopefully they're working on bringing their hardware up to date, since efficiency is a key consideration for the class of workloads they're aiming at.
Aurornis 8 hours ago||
> Being a few generations behind is kinda par for the course for any server hardware that's put in production

No it’s not. Normally if you’re buying server hardware you don’t start with a CPU that’s already 5 years old and last-generation RAM that isn’t even manufactured at scale any more.

CPUs have advanced a lot in recent years. The jump from Zen 3 to Zen 5 is very substantial.

dagi3d 9 hours ago|||
I just talk about some comments I read some time ago, so take this with a grain of salt. It was my understanding that if you were spending about $300k-$500k a year in cloud services, it would make sense this type of solution, so the expected price would be something between $500k-$1M depending on the configuration
everfrustrated 2 hours ago||
Prices are high. You're not buying Oxide to save money.
zozbot234 9 hours ago||
I wonder how Oxide's basic value proposition changes with the very recent growth in rack-scale and multi-rack (datacenter-wide) compute for AI. Surely these other vendors have tech (particularly around network interconnect) that can be repurposed effectively for the more general private cloud workloads Oxide is focusing on.
twoodfin 6 hours ago|
Conversely, has Oxide discussed in depth how they see GPU compute?

I’m guessing for their current target market of existing enterprise software it doesn’t matter, but the ownership and economics stories are at least as compelling for matmul code.

drewbailey 9 hours ago||
Congratulations to the team. Oxide & Friends, Bryan, Adam & Team are such a valuable resource to our community. Their podcast is amazing, the problems they encounter, and their willingness to share with the rest of us is not taken for granted!
NetOpWibby 3 hours ago||
Can't wait to own one of their racks someday...or get around to making Oxide at home.
_pdp_ 9 hours ago||
I am confused. How do you own a cloud you pay for as a service.
liamkinne 9 hours ago||
You buy the physical rack and install it in your data centre. It is your property.
kev507 9 hours ago|||
importantly, you don't pay for it as a service, you buy it and it's yours. like buying a cloud in a box, instead of having to build it yourself with various server, storage, networking, and software vendors it all comes ready to use.
kevinrineer 7 hours ago||
And, interestingly for Oxide, rack scale solutions from HW vendors might not be suited for your company's workload. Their solution isn't all-in on AI, from what I understand.
sudomateo 9 hours ago|||
What led you to believe that this is a SaaS offering? It's not.
toast0 9 hours ago|||
I don't know how it works for Oxide, but this isn't a new concept, IBM has been doing it since the 1950s. Own the mainframe, pay for the required service contract.
Traster 8 hours ago||
I guess there's two ways of looking at this, way (1) is leaning heavily into what seems at least seems to be top of cycle in a cyclical business, which is likely to be highly problematic when they hit downturn, or (2) doing an Amazon and getting lucky by having a massive war chest to survive the next down turn.
aus10d 2 hours ago||
I like this!
bix6 9 hours ago|
Anyone have insight into revenue or valuation? Implied $1B Val but revenue guesstimates I see put them at sub $50M?
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