The Exchanges

Q So help me understand how that actually works. Are you basically taking idle computational space from an ecosystem, pulling it together, the process, that rendering faster?

A Um, not space, but, but CPU power. So today there are roughly 80% of the high performance computing servers that are in the world are not being used. They're idle. They're electrified. They're racked and stacked, but they're just sitting there waiting for something to come to them. So it's a bit like the, the dark fiber concept, um, which you may be familiar with. But in this case, it's kind of like dark, uh, dark CPUs, if you will. So these high performance machines are secured. They're in, they're in, um, you know, robust data centers. Um, they're very powerful machines, but they're just not being used. So we've built an architecture and a commercial model that allows them to be tapped into and to be leveraged and put to good use. And so the folks who are supplying that resource to us, um, are able to, to earn a revenue on a resource that they otherwise would not be able to earn.

AI assessment note: “not space, but, but CPU power. So today there are roughly 80%”

Q So are you signing like leasing agreements or something for amount of space on those?

A Um, sort of, yeah. It's, um, it's an arrangement that really, uh, does not require, uh, a service level agreement with our suppliers. It doesn't require any commitment for them to provide us any, you know, specific amount of machines. The reason for that is we've built a grid, so if one supplier's machines fail or suddenly become not available, we simply reroute the work that we've received to other locations in the grid, and so that means that, uh, any, any one supplier does not have to Provide a service level or, or as I said, any sort of commitment. And that effectively allows them to offer us their machines when they're not otherwise being used at, you know, with very little commitment or obligation.

AI assessment note: “sort of, yeah. It's, um, it's an arrangement that really, uh, does not require”

Q Okay, so I mean, you guys are, you guys, if I'm guessing, unless there's some big cost I don't know about, you don't need this capital. You're probably cash flow positive, right?

A Um, no, I think, I think, well, you know, there's, there's quite a few new opportunities that we see, which are going to require an engineering team to, to tackle that and far beyond what we currently have. So as we, as we go from one use case to the next use case, for example, right now we're deep into animation. We want to get into financial services and engineering. And when we do that, you know, we need to assemble a team to do that. There's a, there's a lot of very specific knowledge and expertise that's required in each of those, those, um, Use cases, which, you know, we need to assemble a team for. So I think it's, I think it's best to raise some money to, to help with that effort.

AI assessment note: “So I think it's, I think it's best to raise some money”

Q I guess, Mark, my question that I'm trying, I'm trying to figure out is your current kind of velocities at a million credit, uh, kind of computer hours per month. I'm wondering if you had all those on one high, you know, you know, the average high density kind of computer, how, what percentage usage are you currently taking up of, of one machine?

A But that, see, that question doesn't, doesn't actually apply to us, because at the moment that we receive a submission, we scan through our inventory, and we launch jobs to machines that are available to us, and so, so we're not, you know, it's not, it's not like we have a data center, and we have our own machines, and those machines are sitting there, um, at some utilization. We are, we are spinning up machines And submitting work to those machines and orchestrating that work, um, you know, as, as it's received. So it's, it's really, um, a highly utilized resource in, in the sense that, um, from our perspective, at least it's, it's available to us, um, on demand and we use it as, as we need it on demand.

AI assessment note: “that question doesn't, doesn't actually apply to us, because”

Q And what's, I want to get into all that in a second. What's the model? Is this a SaaS business? Does NBC studios pay you something per month or annually or what?

A Um, it is, it is a, it's SaaS in the sense that it's push button. So you don't need to be technically adept there. You don't need to know how to configure a machine, uh, how to spin up a machine. All that is done behind the curtain, the grid markets curtain, all that incredible orchestration complexity and, and technical complexity as you go though, or is it a subscription? It's, it's both. Um, so, so we're moving more toward a subscription model because of course that's what investors are looking for. Um, but at the moment it's, it's more of a pay as you go model. So people People can, um, what they do is they buy credits and those credits are used against compute hours that they, that they consume to run their jobs. Um, we're going to be introducing and, you know, start, start offering both models, the, the, uh, pay as you go and the, and the SAS model.

AI assessment note: “at the moment it's, it's more of a pay as you go model”

Q Yep. Yep. Awesome. Um, how do you value a company like this? I mean, what, you don't have to say the valuation you're looking for, but how do you value this in terms of maybe, I don't know, is it top line revenue or what?

A It's a good question because frankly, it's a very unique model. Um, and basically what, what has happened thus far is we've told the story to the investors. Um, we've explained to them, you know, the number of customers that we've acquired the, um, that they understand the technical complexity and what we've built. It's been, we have a patent on it and, and they've offered money at a, at a certain valuation. So at the moment, the valuation has been the result of what the investors have offered us. Um, going forward though, it's, it's maybe a bit more tricky, particularly if we go to an institution. Um, you know, I think, I think the, the, the past valuation may or may not be a good guide. Um, so it's, it's a bit challenging to, to answer that question, but I think it's, it's, it's probably going to just frankly come down to negotiations.

AI assessment note: “valuation has been the result of what the investors have offered us”

Q So what is, what do you charge if I want to get a credit per one computer hour? What does that cost?

A Well, firstly, we, we give you credits to start. Um, and one of the reasons we're doing that is we, we're trying to get people to obviously start using the service and get, getting comfortable with the service. And yes, exactly. And, and we're using that opportunity also to reach back and say, Hey, you know, how did, how did you like your experience and how can we improve upon that? So, so there's, there's a number of credits we give people just simply to To engage the platform, and for them to have the experience of using it, and for us to get their feedback from it, and we, of course, then use that feedback to incorporate improvements into the, into the platform. Sure, but after that, though, yeah. Yeah, and yeah, so after that, right now, we're, we're, um, we're offering credit hours at around a dollar 60 US per credit, uh, per, per credit hour, excuse me.

AI assessment note: “we're offering credit hours at around a dollar 60 US per credit”