Co-founders behind Reface and Prisma join hands to improve on-device model inference with Mirai | TechCrunch

"Much of the conversation around AI today is focused on building cloud capacity and massive data centers to run models. Companies like Apple and Qualcomm are in the early stages of making on-device AI more useful. Amid all that, the 14-person technical team of London-based Mirai is working to improve how models run on phones and laptops. Mirai, which is backed by a $10 million seed round led by Uncork Capital, was founded by Dima Shvets and Alexey Moiseenkov last year."

"As consumer developers, both had been thinking about AI and machine learning on devices even before generative AI became popular, Shvets said. "When we met together in London, we started to chat about technology, and we realized that within the hype of gen AI and more AI adoption, everybody speaks about cloud, about servers, about AGI coming. But the missing piece is on-device [AI] for consumer hardware," he told TechCrunch."

Mirai is a London-based, 14-person startup focused on improving how models run on phones and laptops. The company raised a $10 million seed round led by Uncork Capital. Founders Dima Shvets and Alexey Moiseenkov bring experience from consumer AI apps Reface and Prisma. Mirai develops a framework and an inference engine for Apple Silicon that optimizes on-device throughput. An upcoming SDK aims to let developers integrate the runtime with only a few lines of code. The company prioritizes cost optimization and better margins per token for consumer app developers by shifting workloads to devices.

Read at TechCrunch