From AI Research to Deployment - All in One with Elice Cloud

Promedius

Promedius is a medical imaging AI startup that developed the world’s first AI solution for diagnosing osteoporosis based on Chest X-rays. Recently, Promedius adopted Elice Cloud to improve product performance through foundation model training. In this interview, we spoke with Jinhoon Jeong, Head of the Research Team, to learn more about the background and experiences of using Elice Cloud.

Q. Hello. Please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about Promedius.

Hello. I’m Jinhoon Jung, Head of the Research Team at Promedius. Promedius is a medical imaging AI startup that spun off from Asan Medical Center’s research lab in 2019 and has been continuously innovating with AI technology that supports fast and accurate diagnosis in the medical field. As the Head of the Research Team, I am responsible for all research activities in the company, determining research directions and allocating resources. Our solutions are particularly strong in processing and analyzing medical data efficiently, which helps medical professionals make faster and more accurate decisions.

Q. What was the background for adopting Elice Cloud?

Just as OpenAI’s ChatGPT garnered significant attention, the paper on RayDINO has also become a hot topic in the field of medical imaging. This paper built a foundation model using Chest X-ray data, inspiring us to establish a plan to train our own foundation model in a similar manner. Since training a foundation model requires a large amount of GPU resources, we reviewed several GPU cloud service options and chose Elice Cloud for its performance and efficiency.

► Excerpt from RayDINO paper (Promedius successfully replicated this experiment with Elice Cloud)

Q. How did you hear about Elice Cloud? What was your first impression of it?

We came to know Elice Cloud while forming a consortium to apply for the semicondutor sector of the AI Voucher program. I didn’t have any particular expectations at first, but I was impressed to see that there is such a high-performance GPU cloud service in Korea. In particular, I felt that Elice Cloud well reflects the specialized needs of domestic companies.

Q. Why did you choose Elice over other GPU providers?

I was naturally interested in Elice Cloud while working together on an AI voucher project. I was also impressed by how friendly and responsive they were during the quotation process. We asked a variety of questions as we were new to large-scale GPU cloud services, and they answered all of our inquiries with sincerity and care. They also offered flexible conditions in terms of cost and supported us in preparing the PoC (Proof of Concept) for a sufficient amount of time, which led us to choose Elice Cloud.

Q. What are you using Elice Cloud for, and what do you hope to accomplish with GPUs?

As mentioned earlier, we aim to train a foundation model using Chest X-ray data to further improve the performance of our products. Since most of our major AI products are based on Chest X-rays, we expect the foundation model we are building to have strong synergies with our existing models. This will improve the accuracy of diagnosis and further maximize its use in the medical field.

Q. Did you feel comfortable with the process of adopting Elice Cloud? Please tell us about any inconveniences you encountered.

Since it was our first time renting and using bare-metal servers, the initial setup took some time. However, the Elice Cloud team provided us with a long enough PoC (Proof of Concept period to smooth this out. This gave us the time to adapt to the new environment, and we’ve been using the service without any issues since.

Q. What benefits have you experienced with Elice Cloud?

The biggest advantage was being able to rent the latest GPUs such as the H100 at an afforadable price. In addition, the representatives provided us with quick and continuous feedback whenever we encountered issues during use, which allowed us to achieve optimal performance even with limited budget and resources. Thanks to this attentive support, we were able to efficiently utilize GPU resources.

Q. How has Elice Cloud helped Promedius?

The foundation model we trained using the GPU resources of Elice Cloud is now playing an important role in analyzing our results and further research. This model is being utilized in conjunction with our various Chest X-ray-based studies, significantly improving the speed and efficiency of our research. We expect this model to serve as an important foundation for the development of various AI solutions in the future.

Q. Can you share any achievements you’ve had with Elice Cloud?

Through Elice Cloud, we were able to successfully build our own foundation model and conduct various research based on it, which has greatly contributed to strengthening our research capabilities and increasing the value of our company. We also acquired valuable know-how through experience in utilizing large-scale GPUs, which laid the foundation for achieving results more efficiently and quickly in similar research endeavors in the future.

Q. Tell us what you particularly liked about Elice Cloud (e.g. features, pricing, etc.).

First of all, I was very satisfied with the ability to utilize as many as 32 of the latest H100 GPUs. It was also very cost-effective due to the lowest pricing policy in Korea. Most importantly, I appreciated the pre- and post-sales support, which was very kind and sincere.

Q. How satisfied are you with Elice Cloud overall?

Overall, I am very satisfied. If I had to point out a downside, I found the technical support for setting up Slurm to be somewhat lacking, especially since Slrurm is mainly used in academia for resource management and scheduling in HPC environments. Other than that, I am pleased with the results, which have exceeded my expectations.

Q. Would you recommend Elice Cloud to other organizations? If so, why?

Although the GPU performance offered by each cloud service is actually similar, I think Elice Cloud stands out for its competitive pricing, allowing users to access GPU resources at a reasonable cost. In addition, I highly recommend Elice Cloud for its generous PoC period and the friendly and prompt pre- and post-sales support.

Q. Can you tell us a bit about the future direction of Promedius?

Promedius is currently conducting domestic clinical trials for its osteoporosis classification product using Chest X-rays (CXR), and we aim to enter the global market next year through FDA and CE certification. Along with this, we plan to develop various CXR-based AI products and to grow as a leading company in the medical AI field.

Elice Cloud has provided meticulous pre- and post-sales support to help Promedius quickly adapt to the initial environment while actively assisting us strengthen our research capabilities. We hope that Elice Cloud will continue to serve as a solid foundation for Promedius’s research and development efforts, as well as its global market entry.

Elice Cloud provides the latest GPU resources at a reasonable cost to support your research and development. If you need GPUs optimized for research, consider adopting Elice Cloud.

👉 Learn more about Elice Cloud On-Demand

👉 Get an Elice Cloud GPU service consultation

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*Without prior consent, secondary processing and commercial use of the content are prohibited.

SELECTSTAR

Selectstar, an AI startup, ranks first in Korea for text data building. In this interview, we spoke with Minwoo Kim, the AI NLP team lead, and Heondeuk Lee, an AI researcher at Selectstar. They shared how they came to adopt Elice Cloud, their achievements, and their future goals.

Q: Hello. Please introduce yourselves and tell us a bit about Selectstar.

Heondeuk Lee : Hello. I’m Heondeuk Lee, an AI researcher at Selectstar.

Minwoo Kim : Hello. I’m Minwoo Kim, the AI NLP team lead at Selectstar. Selectstar is the top company in Korea for text data building, and we are also developing data evaluation solutions. With the rise of large language models (LLM), we are working on a product that utilizes LLM internally, including a character-based video calling solution. We have IP contracts with well-known character companies such as Pororo and Robocar Poli.

Q: How did you hear about Elice Cloud? And why did you decide to adopt it?

Minwoo Kim : I knew Elice as a company that started as an education platform with a great LXP. We were using another cloud service, but while comparing options for research, I learned about Elice Cloud from our CEO. We chose Elice Cloud because it was easy to start and stop instances and was more cost-effective than other options.

Q: What was your first impression of Elice Cloud?

Minwoo Kim : Elice is known for its well-developed LXP, and the GPU cloud was equally user-friendly from a UI/UX perspective. Other cloud services often require numerous settings and terminal operations, but Elice Cloud is easy to set up with its no-code interface.

Q: What are you using Elice Cloud for, and what are your goals?

Minwoo Kim : We primarily use Elice Cloud for research. As the demand for GPUs increases with the LLM era, Selectstar uses Elice Cloud for internal LLM research and development. Our main goal is to strengthen our research base through Elice Cloud, as successful research is crucial for developing new platforms or selling our technology to other companies.

Q: What benefits have you experienced with Elice Cloud?

Heondeuk Lee : It’s very useful to easily track my teammates’ usage. Also, splitting instances and checking our code is more convenient with Elice Cloud compared to using tools like Git. Additionally, managing CUDA versioning is hassle-free.

Q: Can you share any achievements you’ve had with Elice Cloud?

Heondeuk Lee : During the development of a new solution, we needed to complete an experiment within three days and proceed to statistical analysis. By using Elice Cloud to divide the instances and run the experiment in parallel, we quickly and efficiently obtained significant results.

Q: What do you like about Elice Cloud?

Heondeuk Lee : The low cost compared to other GPU services is a major advantage. Also, the ease of dividing and managing instances is a big plus. We can easily collaborate, as team members can see what code has been modified in parallel.

Q: Would you recommend Elice Cloud to other organizations? If so, why?

Heondeuk Lee : I would recommend Elice Cloud to any company that needs to move quickly through the proof of concept (PoC) or minimum viable product (MVP) stages. It’s fast, stable, and you can focus on your work without worrying about lag or version control issues. Elice Cloud is an excellent choice for model development.

Q: What are Selectstar’s future plans?

Minwoo Kim : Selectstar is currently the top company for text data building in Korea, and we aim to expand globally. We have two main goals: to develop a cost-effective, high-efficiency data building solution and to create a SaaS platform that can evaluate LLM performance for different companies. We look forward to achieving these goals and continuing our collaboration with Elice Cloud.

Elice Cloud has been instrumental in our research and development, providing fast, reliable performance and easy management. We look forward to its role in Selectstar’s journey to the global market.

Elice Cloud offers a dedicated AI data center with high-end GPU resources. If you’re a startup looking for a GPU cloud for AI research, consider Elice Cloud!

👉 Learn more about Elice Cloud On-Demand

👉 Get an Elice Cloud GPU service consultation

*Elice owns the copyright to this content, which is protected under copyright law.

*Without prior consent, secondary processing and commercial use of the content are prohibited.

Linq

AI startup Linq has adopted and is now utilizing Elice Cloud On-Demand. In this interview, we spoke with Chan-Yeol Choi, CEO of Linq, about their decision to adopt Elice Cloud On-Demand and their experience with it.

Q: Can you give us a brief introduction to Linq.

Linq is a startup specializing in market intelligence solutions powered by generative AI. We are developing Linq Alpha, an AI search service designed for hedge funds, and we offer solutions that analyze the content of stock-related documents and provide answers to queries. This enables our clients to obtain the necessary information swiftly and accurately.

👉 Learn more about Linq Alpha

Q: What made you decide to adopt GPUs?

At that time, Linq was developing the embedding model, which is the core of AI search, in-house. However, we faced significant challenges in securing the necessary resources for model development, creating an urgent need for GPUs. We reached out to Elsevier and adopted their GPU service, which significantly accelerated the speed of our model development.

*Embedding model: A fundamental model used in Retrieval Augmentation Generation (RAG) technology, crucial for addressing the hallucination problem in large language models (LLMs), one of the major issues in generative AI. RAG technology leverages the latest data not present in the LLM and internal company documents that should remain confidential, ensuring reliable results.

Q: How did you hear about Elice Cloud?

I met Elice at a founders’ meetup and learned that Elice was in the cloud business. Later, when we ran out of GPU resources, Elice Cloud came to mind, and I reached out to them. Some of the founders around me had used Elice Cloud, so I had already heard a lot of positive feedback about it.

Q: Why did you specifically choose Elice Cloud over other GPU services?

The primary reason is the speed of acquiring resources, and the second is the competitive pricing. The most important factor was having resources available when we needed them, and Elice Cloud was the most responsive in this regard. In terms of pricing, they offered very competitive terms compared to other cloud services.

Q: What are you using the Elice Cloud for? I’m also curious about what you hope to achieve by adopting the cloud.

We’ve used Elice Cloud to train our AI models, and we’ve seen some great results. For instance, Linq was ranked #1 in text search on Huggingface’s MTEB ‘Mass Text Embedding Benchmark Leaderboard’, surpassing Nvidia, Salesforce, Google, OpenAI, and others.

As Linq develops generative AI models that can provide the answers our customers need, our goal is to create high-performance search models that consistently delight our customers. We believe Elice Cloud will help us achieve this goal.

▲ MTEB Reference Image

Q: When you first started using Elice Cloud, did you find it convenient? Please tell us about any inconveniences you encountered.

I’m from an engineering background and studied computer science, so I didn’t have much trouble using it. Even when communicating with our developers, I didn’t face any difficulties or inconveniences except for the initial setup.

Q: What’s been your favorite thing about using Elice Cloud?

What impressed me the most was the customer support. We were in constant communication with Sooin Kim, CRPO, and Andy Nam, Head of AI Cloud. It was reassuring to know they understood our situation and were keen to provide the products we needed. They also kept us informed about how Elice could assist us with Linq, allowing us to anticipate and plan for resource requirements effectively.

Q: Was there anything in particular that you liked about Elice Cloud?

When launching a new service on any cloud, stability is paramount. Elice Cloud offers on-demand capabilities, making it easy to test on-demand whenever necessary and plan the next steps accordingly. This feature greatly appealed to me.

Additionally, I know they have released an ML API, and we look forward to utilizing it as we modularize in the future.

Q: How satisfied are you with Elice Cloud overall? How would you rate it out of 10?

I’d give it a 9. I contacted five GPU companies, and Elice was the fastest to respond, within two working days. We were in a rush, and Elice’s quick response enabled us to start trials immediately, allowing us to meet our desired release timeline. This prompt support contributed to our model’s success.

Q: Would you recommend Elice Cloud to other organizations, and if so, can you give us a brief reason why?

As I mentioned earlier, for developers, it’s crucial to access resources promptly when needed. I would definitely recommend Elice Cloud because of this. Additionally, their discounted structure for continuous usage creates a natural lock-in effect. In fact, I’ve already recommended it to many people around me and will continue to do so.

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about where you see Linq going in the future?

So far, Linq has developed models in various sectors such as healthcare, retail, and insurance. Starting this year, we’ll focus on hedge funds, developing numerous finance-specific models. Our goal is to provide the precise answers our customers need, striving to become the best in the world in this domain.

With Elice Cloud, Linq has been able to quickly acquire the necessary resources and achieve excellent results with its AI models. Elice Cloud offers AI startups like Linq a fast and reliable cloud environment, aiding enterprises in developing their solutions. If your organization needs a reliable GPU environment, consider Elice Cloud On-Demand as a service.

👉 Learn more about Elice Cloud On-Demand

👉 Get an Elice Cloud GPU service consultation

*Elice owns the copyright to this content, which is protected under copyright law.

*Without prior consent, secondary processing and commercial use of the content are prohibited.