Enlarge / The ASUS logo in front of an AI-generated background. (credit: ASUS / Stable Diffusion)
Taiwan’s Asustek Computer (known popularly as “Asus”) plans to introduce a rental business AI server that will operate on-site to address security concerns and data control issues that come from cloud-based AI systems, Bloomberg reports. The service, called AFS Appliance, will feature Nvidia chips and run an AI language model called “Formosa” that Asus claims is equivalent to OpenAI’s GPT-3.5.
Asus hopes to offer the service at about $6,000 per month, according to Bloomberg’s interview with Asus Cloud and TWS President Peter Wu. The highest-powered server, based on an Nvidia DGX AI platform, will cost about $10,000 a month. The servers will be powered by Nvidia’s A100 GPUs and will be owned and operated by Asus. The company hopes to provide the service to 30 to 50 enterprise customers in Taiwan at first, then expand internationally later in 2023.
“Nvidia are a partner with us to accelerate the enterprise adoption of this technology,” Wu told Bloomberg. “Before ChatGPT, the enterprises were not aware of why they need so much computing power.”
