# AI Factories: It's time to rethink the Cloud-HPC divide

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.12849 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.12849/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 15 of its 71 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 Sep 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 15 of 15)

- [Efficient Memory Management for Large Language Model Serving with PagedAttention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.06180/) (2023)
- [DiLoCo: Distributed Low-Communication Training of Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.08105/) (2023)
- [Parallel and Distributed Graph Neural Networks: An In-Depth Concurrency Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.09702/) (2022)
- [Production Machine Learning Pipelines: Empirical Analysis and Optimization Opportunities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.16007/) (2021)
- [Occupy the Cloud: Distributed Computing for the 99%](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.04024/) (2017)
- [Helix: Holistic Optimization for Accelerating Iterative Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.05762/) (2018)
- [AIOps for a Cloud Object Storage Service](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.03094/) (2020)
- [FfDL : A Flexible Multi-tenant Deep Learning Platform](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.06526/) (2019)
- [XaaS: Acceleration as a Service to Enable Productive High-Performance Cloud Computing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.04552/) (2024)
- [Software Resource Disaggregation for HPC with Serverless Computing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.10852/) (2024)
- [The infrastructure powering IBM's Gen AI model development](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.05467/) (2024)
- [rFaaS: Enabling High Performance Serverless with RDMA and Leases](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.13859/) (2021)
- [Using Unused: Non-Invasive Dynamic FaaS Infrastructure with HPC-Whisk](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.00717/) (2022)
- [The role of interactive super-computing in using HPC for urgent decision making](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.08774/) (2020)
- [ColonyOS -- A Meta-Operating System for Distributed Computing Across Heterogeneous Platform](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.16486/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The strategic importance of artificial intelligence is driving a global push toward Sovereign AI initiatives. Nationwide governments are increasingly developing dedicated infrastructures, called AI Factories (AIF), to achieve technological autonomy and secure the resources necessary to sustain robust local digital ecosystems. In Europe, the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking is investing hundreds of millions of euros into several AI Factories, built atop existing high-performance computing (HPC) supercomputers. However, while HPC systems excel in raw performance, they are not inherently designed for usability, accessibility, or serving as public-facing platforms for AI services such as inference or agentic applications. In contrast, AI practitioners are accustomed to cloud-native technologies like Kubernetes and object storage, tools that are often difficult to integrate within traditional HPC environments. This article advocates for a dual-stack approach within supercomputers: integrating both HPC and cloud-native technologies. Our goal is to bridge the divide between HPC and cloud computing by combining high performance and hardware acceleration with ease of use and service-oriented front-ends. This convergence allows each paradigm to amplify the other. To this end, we will study the cloud challenges of HPC (Serverless HPC) and the HPC challenges of cloud technologies (High-performance Cloud).