Uptime Industries is betting on its on-premises AI infrastructure using “AI-in-a-box” handheld devices called Lemony AI.
The size of the sandwich, Lemon AI can run large language models (LLM), AI agents, AI workflows on a single node. Each lemon should only run 65 watts of power, equivalent to charging a laptop, and can be stacked and connected to form a larger AI cluster.
Sascha Buehrle, co-founder and CEO of Uptime, told TechCrunch that each node can maintain LLMs of up to 75 billion parameters in size, and that it can host open source or modified versions of closed models. In a cluster of lemon nodes, each device can run a different model.
Uptime is launched in a partnership with IBM and JetBrains to provide customers with access to AI models, including IBM’s closed models.
Like most tech startups, Lemon’s AI idea came from a supplementary project: Uptime co-founders Buehrle and Ivan Kuleshov were trying to figure out whether language models could be distributed to the Raspberry Pi microcomputer, which was not originally related to the generation AI, but they were able to handle these RaspBerry Pis.
When you realize that running a model on a local device is the key to unlocking more AI adoption by your organization (companies who don’t want to use cloud-based models) will start building their own devices. They thought that a smaller focus on data privacy could help businesses adopt AI more quickly.
“We need to build something small that can easily go to our team. This doesn’t require decision-making across the organization. Essentially, we bring on-premises generation AI solutions to our business team,” Buehrle says. A small, powerful cluster of devices can help grow the system according to the needs of its customers, he added.
The company says it has already seen strong business demand in largely regulated industries such as finance, healthcare and law.
“It all stays in your box,” Buehrle said. “So the documents, files, emails – models are hosted in boxes, the agents are running locally in boxes and not leaving the boxes.”
Uptime has so far raised $2 million in a seed funding round led by True Ventures, with participation from alumni, jet costumes and some angel investors. The company will use the funds to develop more devices.
The startup says it’s about getting software developed for the lemon OS of micro AI computers, like NVIDIA DGX Spark, to tackle the hardware of other companies. We also want to extend the software from current single-user focus to something that teams can use.
Using Lemony AI is $499 per month and can be accessed by up to five users.