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Crusoe vs GMI Cloud
Both own their hardware and both started near energy or crypto. GMI Cloud brings APAC residency and media models; Crusoe brings bigger scale and managed fine-tuning.
By The Subconscious Team · Updated
Crusoe vs GMI Cloud: key differences
Crusoe and GMI Cloud are vertically integrated GPU clouds with unusual origins. Crusoe began turning wasted natural gas into compute power and now reports over 6 GW of contracted capacity, including the Abilene campus behind Stargate. GMI pivoted from crypto mining, runs Tier-4 data centers in Silicon Valley, Colorado, Taiwan, Thailand and Malaysia, and gets priority H100, H200 and B200 supply as an NVIDIA Cloud Partner. Scale differs sharply: GMI raised an $82M Series A, while Crusoe closed part of a $3.9B Series F. On inference, GMI's engine lists 100+ models across LLMs, video, image and audio, with GLM-4.7-Flash at $0.07 in and $0.40 out. Crusoe's text-only list starts at $0.05 in and $0.20 out.
Performance pitches differ too. GMI says its Cluster Engine runs near bare metal and recovers the 10 to 15% overhead of standard cloud virtualization. Crusoe points to MemoryAlloy, a KV cache shared across the cluster, and claims up to 5x throughput over vLLM on prefix-heavy work. Neither has much independent benchmarking behind these claims. Crusoe offers serverless LoRA fine-tuning and AMD MI355X next to NVIDIA parts; GMI does not list customization. GMI's shared, autoscaling and reserved tiers run on one API, and its in-country facilities matter for Asia-Pacific buyers. Its LLM catalog is less current than larger US hosts.
What Crusoe and GMI Cloud do
Crusoe
Crusoe started in 2018 turning wasted natural gas into power for computing and has since become a vertically integrated AI infrastructure company: it sources energy, builds data centers and rents GPUs through Crusoe Cloud. It designed and built the Abilene, Texas campus behind the OpenAI and Oracle Stargate project, planned at 1.2 GW, and in March 2026 announced an adjacent 900 MW campus for Microsoft. On September 17, 2026 it closed the first part of a $3.9B Series F at a $30.9B post-money valuation, and it reports over 6 GW of contracted capacity. Crusoe Cloud lists GB200 NVL72, B200 and AMD MI355X by quote, with H100 at $3.90 and H200 at $4.29 per GPU-hour on demand.
Example models: DeepSeek V4 Pro, GLM 5.3, Kimi K2.6
Full Crusoe profileGMI Cloud
GMI Cloud is a vertically integrated GPU cloud and inference platform that owns its NVIDIA hardware. It runs Tier-4 data centers in Silicon Valley, Colorado, Taiwan, Thailand and Malaysia, and as an NVIDIA Cloud Partner it gets priority access to H100, H200 and B200 supply. The company pivoted from crypto mining into AI, which gave it experience standing up high-density power and cooling fast. An $82M Series A came from Headline, Wistron and Thai energy group Banpu.
Example models: GLM-4.7-Flash, Google Veo
Full GMI Cloud profileShould you choose Crusoe or GMI Cloud?
Crusoe vs GMI Cloud at a glance
| Attribute | Crusoe | GMI Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Open weights | Open and third-party models |
| Flagship models | DeepSeek V4, GLM 5.3, Kimi K2.6, Nemotron 3 | GLM-4.7-Flash, Google Veo |
| Speed | Up to 9.9x faster TTFT vs vLLM (vendor claim) | Near bare-metal performance |
| Price | $0.05–$1.74 in, $0.20–$4.40 out per 1M | $0.07 in, $0.40 out (GLM-4.7-Flash) |
| Customization | Serverless LoRA fine-tuning | Unknown |
| Deployment | Serverless, self-serve and tailored dedicated, raw GPUs | Shared, autoscaling, reserved GPUs |
| Long context | Varies by model; cluster-wide KV cache | Varies by model |
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Crusoe and GMI Cloud?
Both own their hardware and both started near energy or crypto. GMI Cloud brings APAC residency and media models; Crusoe brings bigger scale and managed fine-tuning.
When should I choose Crusoe over GMI Cloud?
Fine-tuning open LLMs with LoRA; Very large training or inference clusters; Agents with heavy prefix reuse.
When should I choose GMI Cloud over Crusoe?
Inference kept in Taiwan, Thailand or Malaysia; LLMs and video generation on one API; Reserved H100 or H200 capacity in APAC.
Is Crusoe or GMI Cloud cheaper?
Crusoe: $0.05–$1.74 in, $0.20–$4.40 out per 1M. GMI Cloud: $0.07 in, $0.40 out (GLM-4.7-Flash). The cheaper choice depends on the model and workload.
Which has more context, Crusoe or GMI Cloud?
Crusoe: Varies by model; cluster-wide KV cache. GMI Cloud: Varies by model.
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