Generative AI unicorn Liquid AI has closed $250 million in Series A funding. The round was led by chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which is also a strategic partner to the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company. The round values Liquid AI at over $2 billion.
This investment aims to bolster Liquid AI’s development of Liquid Foundation Models (LFMs), which are lightweight, general-purpose AI models for enterprise use. The company’s LFMs are positioned as an alternative to traditional cloud-based AI models offered by companies such as OpenAI, AWS, and Google Cloud.
What’s next for Liquid AI?
The partnership with AMD will enable Liquid AI to optimise these LFMs with graphic, central, and neural processing units. This collaboration is expected to enhance the performance and scalability of LFMs. Liquid AI plans to use the funding to scale its compute infrastructure and pace up product readiness on the edge and on-premise.
The company intends to integrate its AI products into mission-critical workflows across various sectors, including consumer electronics, telecommunication, financial services, e-commerce, and biotechnology. The funding will also support the company’s commitment to democratising access to AI by scaling the advantages of LFMs across more model sizes and data modalities, and they have also invited interested parties to join its team as it continues to innovate in the AI sector.
What does Liquid AI offer?
The company was founded as an MIT spin-off in Boston by Ramin Hasani, Mathias Lechner, Alexander Amini, and robotics luminary Daniela Rus to create a new generation of foundation models from first principles.
Liquid AI offers three model sizes: a dense 1.3 billion-parameter model for on-device, such as mobile phones; a 3.1 billion=parameter model optimised for edge deployments; and one designed to tackle complex tasks.
The company said LFMs have a reduced memory footprint compared with GPT architectures that are even more substantial for lengthy inputs. As per the company, the second model uses significantly less memory than other small models when deployed than models such as Google LLC’s Gemma 2 2B-it or Meta Platform Inc.’s Llama 3.2 3B.
“At Liquid, our mission is to build the most capable and efficient AI systems at every scale,” said Chief Executive Ramin Hasani. “Since our inception, we have demonstrated the scalability of our technology by releasing text-based models, unveiling multimodal LFMs, and collaborating with key partners to showcase real-world impact.”
AMD Corporate Development senior vice president and chief strategy officer Mathew Hein said: “Liquid AI’s unique approach to developing efficient AI models will push the boundaries of AI, making it far more accessible. We are thrilled to collaborate with Liquid AI to train and deploy their AI models on AMD Instinct GPUs and support their growth through this latest funding round.”
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