Google Cloud shares access to Nvidia GPUs with AI startups: report

Google Cloud (NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL) is providing Y Combinator startups access to a cluster of Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) GPUs and Google tensor processing units to build artificial intelligence models, according to TechCrunch.

Y Combinator is a venture capital firm and startup accelerator headquartered in Mountain View, Calif.

Google will provide a select group of startups $350,000 in cloud credits over a period of two years. The plan is to help these startups be successful, and become long-term partners with Google Cloud, the report said.

“We want to surround them with a lot of love and warmth early in their lifecycle so they get familiarized with building and working on the Google Cloud Platform,” Google Cloud’s James Lee told TechCrunch. “As they stick around, we grow as they grow, and we become a partner of theirs throughout their lifecycle.”

Y Combinator is not the only venture capital firm taking this approach.

Andreessen Horotwitz has purchased thousands of GPUs, including many from Nvidia, in order to win deals for startups.

The venture capital firm, which has $42B in assets under management, has rented out the GPUs to many of its portfolio companies. Eventually, Andreessen Horowitz, also known as A16z, plans to expand the venture — which it describes as “oxygen”— to more than 20,000 GPUs.