DigitalOcean and AMD Supercharge Character.ai’s Billion-Query AI Model
DigitalOcean has collaborated with Character.ai and AMD to enhance AI inference performance on its cloud platform. The project focused on deploying a high-capacity model to handle over a billion daily user queries. Early results show doubled throughput, halved costs, and improved response times compared to traditional GPU setups.
The project centered on running Character.ai's Qwen 235-billion-parameter mixture-of-experts model using AMD Instinct MI300X and MI325X GPUs. Engineers from all three companies worked together to fine-tune the system, including adjustments to ROCm, vLLM, and AMD's AITER framework. Their goal was to manage latency-sensitive conversational workloads while maintaining strict response time targets.
DigitalOcean's approach went beyond hardware selection. The team implemented hardware-aware scheduling and inference runtime optimizations, uncovering performance gains that generic configurations often miss. By reducing communication overhead and staying within latency budgets, they directly improved cost efficiency.
A key outcome was the ability to process twice the workload at half the token cost, without sacrificing speed. Character.ai confirmed that p90 time-to-first-token and time-per-output-token remained within required thresholds, even under heavy demand. The success highlights how platform-level co-optimization can outperform standard GPU deployments.
The deployment demonstrates that cloud providers can now compete on inference performance rather than just hardware specs. By combining AMD's accelerators with tailored software optimizations, DigitalOcean delivered measurable gains in throughput, cost, and latency. The results suggest that diversified GPU strategies, paired with deep platform tuning, can meet production-grade AI workload demands.
Read also:
- India's Agriculture Minister Reviews Sector Progress Amid Heavy Rains, Crop Areas Up
- Sleep Maxxing Trends and Tips: New Zealanders Seek Better Rest
- Over 1.7M in Baden-Württemberg at Poverty Risk, Emmendingen's Housing Crisis Urgent
- Cyprus, Kuwait Strengthen Strategic Partnership with Upcoming Ministerial Meeting
