Running models (inference)
Every time anyone uses AI, a model runs somewhere. Hosting, routing, testing and privately running models is a fast-growing layer of its own.
- Areas
- 4
- Companies
- 39
- Money flows
- 35
Inference providers
Companies that run models on GPUs or custom chips and sell the output by the token.
Makes the GPUs that most AI inference runs on, and paid about $20B in late 2025 to license Groq's inference chip technology.
$89.0B data centre revenue in the quarter to July 2026 (fiscal Q2 2027), out of $96.2B total
Open profileDesigns its own inference chips and runs a cloud that serves open models quickly.
$3.5B in a 2026 round that followed its Nvidia licensing deal
Open profileMakes very large AI chips and now sells hosted model access as well as the hardware itself.
$510M in 2025, with $87.9M net income
Open profileRents Nvidia GPU cloud capacity to AI labs and companies, and sells GPU servers.
About $760M annualised in 2025 (Sacra estimate)
Open profilefast open-model hosting
Company says more than $1B annual recurring revenue (Jul 2026). Sacra estimates about $800M annualised by May 2026
Open profileopen-model hosting
About $1B annualised (Sacra estimate, Feb 2026)
Open profileHosts the main library of open AI models and datasets, and sells inference, storage and subscriptions to companies.
Annualised revenue above $150M, from one unofficial report. The company does not disclose revenue
Open profilepay-as-you-go GPUs
About $300M annualised (CEO, 2026, reported)
Open profileLets developers run AI models through an API. Now part of Cloudflare, feeding its Workers AI platform.
Bought by Cloudflare for $57.4M cash consideration, completed 1 Dec 2025
Open profileruns production models for companies
About $600M annualised run-rate, reported in mid 2026 (not audited)
Open profileHosts open AI models through an API at low prices and is building its own data centre capacity.
Company says annual recurring revenue above $100M (2026). Not audited
Open profileServes image, video and audio models through an API for app builders.
Reported to have doubled from $200M to $400M annualised in about five months (one outlet, 2026)
Open profileMakes its own AI chips and sells inference cloud access and on-premise systems to large organisations.
About $11B after a round of about $1B (July 2026)
Open profileModel routing
One connection that sends each request to the best or cheapest of many models, with billing and backup built in.
marketplace of hundreds of models behind one API
Sacra estimate of about $50M annualised in early 2026. Company does not publish revenue
Open profileRuns a global network and an AI Gateway that routes and caches AI calls for apps, and bought Replicate in Dec 2025.
Open profileHosts web apps and runs AI Gateway, one endpoint for many model providers with no token markup.
About $340M run-rate (Apr 2026, reported)
Open profileAI gateway with monitoring and guardrails
No figure found
Open profileOpen-source logging and gateway for AI calls. Now part of Mintlify and in maintenance mode.
Last disclosed raise of $1.5M (Apr 2023, per CB Insights). Acquisition price not disclosed
Open profileopen-source router with a paid enterprise tier
Seed round co-led by Y Combinator (reported)
Open profileModel router that picks the best model for each request to balance answer quality against cost.
$9M seed led by NEA (Nov 2023). No 2026 funding found
Open profileModel router that predicts which AI model will give the best answer for a prompt at the lowest cost.
About $2.3M raised in 2024, plus an undisclosed 2025 round from strategic investors including IBM and SAP.iO
Open profilePrivate and local AI
Running models on your own machines or in your own cloud account for privacy, cost or control.
Sells NIM microservices and NVIDIA AI Enterprise software, which run AI models inside a company's own data centre.
$89.0B data centre revenue in the quarter to July 2026 (fiscal Q2 2027), out of $96.2B total
Open profileHosts private model deployments inside a customer's Google Cloud account, and runs its own Gemini models.
25% of AI chip supply (Epoch AI)
Open profileHosts private model deployments inside a customer's Azure account, and sells its own Copilot and model services.
20M+ users (2025)
Open profileHosts private and dedicated copies of AI models inside a customer's own AWS account, through Bedrock and related services.
5% of AI chip supply (Epoch AI)
Open profilesells on-premise deployments
About $14B valuation (Sep 2025)
Open profileSells AI servers and the Dell AI Factory package, built with Nvidia chips, for companies that run AI in their own sites.
Full-year fiscal 2027 guidance raised to $192B (Sep 2026)
Open profileCanadian company that builds enterprise AI models and mostly sells them for private or on-premise use.
About $240M annualised recurring revenue at end 2025 (reported)
Open profileDesktop app that runs open AI models on your own computer. Free for work and personal use since July 2025.
About $1.8M annual revenue in 2025 (reported)
Open profilethe popular tool for running models on a laptop or server
Not disclosed. Company declined to discuss revenue at its Series B
Open profileSells Private Cloud AI, a bundled on-premise AI system with Nvidia chips, for companies that keep data in-house.
Open profileSells OpenShift AI, a platform for running and managing AI models on a company's own servers or cloud. Owned by IBM.
Open profileTesting and monitoring AI
Tools that check model and agent output quality, trace what happened, and catch failures.
Networking giant that agreed to buy Galileo in April 2026 to add AI monitoring to its Splunk observability products.
About $4B of AI infrastructure revenue in fiscal 2026 (year to July 2026)
Open profileopen-source monitoring
Bought by ClickHouse (Jan 2026)
Open profileRuns a fast open-source database used for analytics. Bought Langfuse to add AI tracing to its stack.
Completed a $400M Series D alongside the Langfuse deal (Jan 2026). Valuation not in the source
Open profileTests AI models for hallucinations, errors and safety problems, and monitors them once they are live.
Total funding about $68M. Its $45M Series B was led by Scale Venture Partners (dated Oct 2024 by CB Insights)
Open profiletracing for LangChain apps
LangSmith annual recurring revenue reported at $12M to $16M (TechCrunch, 2025). Not confirmed by the company
Open profilemonitoring
$70M Series C (2025)
Open profiletesting and monitoring
$80M at about $800M valuation (Feb 2026)
Open profileEvaluates LLMs and AI agents for accuracy and safety, and builds simulated worlds to test agents.
Company says revenue grew more than 15 times in the past year. Not audited
Open profileThe map updates three times a week.
241 companies across 25 areas, 62 money flows and 89 openings so far. New research lands every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
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