Tarun Dua, Founder of E2E Networks, discusses overcoming initial challenges, pioneering advanced cloud GPUs, and empowering startups with cost-effective, high-performance cloud solutions, positioning India at the forefront of the AI revolution.
Read the full interview here:
TimesTech: E2E Networks has been a pioneer in cloud computing in India since 2009. What were some initial challenges you faced, and how did you overcome them?
Mr Tarun: In 2009, I founded E2E Networks as the first Indian company to provide Contractless Compute Infrastructure to Indian startups. While there were other cloud service providers (CSPs) in the global market, none focused on helping Indian startups and businesses build a fully data-sovereign stack from India.
Our initial challenge was convincing businesses to trust us with their application workloads. Once they did, they saw how we could help them grow and scale. Since then, numerous startups have used our cloud platform to become unicorns.
Our early investors recognized our potential and supported us, giving us the necessary resources to compete in the cloud computing landscape. Since then, we haven’t looked back. We listed on NSE Emerge in 2018 through an IPO that was oversubscribed 70 times and transitioned to the main NSE board in 2022.
More recently, we were ranked among the top three IaaS providers globally in the Spring 2024 G2 ratings. Additionally, we have been empaneled by MeitY as a cloud service provider (CSP), enabling us to assist India’s government agencies and public sector organizations in scaling their digital transformation journeys.
TimesTech: Your platform is known for cost-effective, high-performance cloud solutions for startups and SMEs. How does E2E specifically cater to these segments, and what sets your services apart?
Mr Tarun: At E2E Networks, we pride ourselves on being the most price-performant hyperscale cloud provider in the Indian market. Our platform offers scalable AI/ML and cloud services for developers, data scientists, startups, enterprises, higher education institutions, research organizations, and government bodies. We enable these users to deploy, use, and scale machine learning platforms, data science workflows, and other applications with ease.
To this end, E2E Cloud, our cloud platform, includes a comprehensive range of technologies such as Cloud GPUs, Compute resources, Object Storage, Block Storage, Containers, Load balancers, CDN and DBaaS. This ensures that businesses have everything they need to build and launch their applications and platforms using E2E Cloud. Also, as India’s exclusive cloud provider offering prepaid and per-hour billing, we give businesses complete control over their spending, ensuring predictable cloud infrastructure pricing and peace of mind. Leveraging our extensive experience in scaling high-growth startups, our cloud platform ensures businesses can grow and build a fully data-sovereign application.
Our unique combination of affordability, cutting-edge technology, advanced cloud infrastructure and 100% human support sets us apart, and helps enable startups, businesses and public sector organizations to achieve their goals without compromising on performance or compliance.
TimesTech: With the importance of AI and machine learning on the rise, how do your GPU cloud offerings support the needs of AI/ML startups and enterprises?
Mr Tarun: We pioneered advanced cloud GPUs in India, an innovation that has been instrumental for AI startups, enabling them to compete globally by providing necessary computational power at an affordable cost. We were the first to introduce state-of-the-art GPUs such as HGX H100, A100, L4OS, and others to the Indian market.
Our GPU cloud offerings are highly customizable to meet the specific needs of our clients. We provide advanced configurations like Deep64 (64x H100) and high-end clusters such as 128x H100 and 256x H100. All of these configurations are powered by InfiniBand technology, which ensures peak performance for ML training and inference tasks.
In addition, we have developed an AI development platform called TIR. This platform is designed to simplify the AI development process for data scientists and developers. TIR enables users to train models, host model endpoints, leverage vector databases, and build complete AI applications with minimal coding. Backed by E2E’s world-class infrastructure, TIR provides a seamless and powerful environment for AI development.
TimesTech: White labeling options are a unique aspect of your service. How do these options benefit your private cloud customers, and what has been the response from businesses reselling E2E’s infrastructure?
Mr Tarun: We have established a partner network to deliver AI-enabled cloud computing services and AI infrastructure to organizations, developers, researchers, and innovators. This network is a key element of our strategy and has experienced rapid growth, primarily because E2E Networks is recognized as a leading provider of advanced AI infrastructure from India.
Our partner network operates through two distinct models: the Sell To Customer model and the Sell To Partner model, designed to accommodate different partnership preferences. In both models, we offer the highest margins in the cloud industry to our partners. In the Sell To Customer model, our partners act as intermediaries between E2E Networks and the end customers. In the Sell To Partner model, our partners actively resell E2E Networks’ cloud services, offering our state-of-the-art AI infrastructure directly to their clients.
The significant interest we’re receiving from partners is due to our unique position in the market. We are among the niche set of providers of advanced cloud GPUs and AI-first infrastructure from India, helping AI companies train foundational AI models, scale inference endpoints, and launch AI applications. Our focus on this specific market has garnered substantial interest from potential partners, who are witnessing rapid growth in AI adoption.
TimesTech: With over 15,000 customers and more than 2,000 active ones, what strategies have been key to E2E Networks’ growth and success in the competitive cloud market?
Mr Tarun: E2E Networks’ growth and success in the highly competitive cloud market can be attributed to several key strategies that have set us apart.
Firstly, our strategy has always been to be among the first to introduce cutting-edge technologies to the market. For instance, we were the first in India to offer advanced cloud GPUs, and we continue to lead till date because we provide highly advanced cloud GPU cluster configurations. By staying ahead of the curve and adopting innovative solutions early on, we have consistently provided our customers with the most advanced and efficient cloud services available.
Secondly, we leverage battle-tested open-source stacks to power our cloud platform. This makes our platform highly reliable and performant, and allows us to cater our solutions specifically to the needs of the Indian market.
We are also playing a vital role in building the AI ecosystem in India. Initiatives such as AI Day events across the country, the recently conducted Innov AI conference hosted in partnership with IIM Bangalore, and the numerous workshops and webinars that we regularly conduct have combined to create a platform for knowledge sharing and community building, further supporting AI startups and enthusiasts.
Our community-driven approach has been instrumental in building enormous trust and reputation among our customers. We go out of our way to ensure that their operations run seamlessly, and provide personalized support that many hyperscalers lack. This human touch, combined with our technical expertise, has helped us develop strong, lasting relationships with our customers.
TimesTech: With over 20 years of industry experience, what are your thoughts on the future of cloud computing and AI in India, and how do you see E2E Networks shaping this future?
Mr Tarun: India is poised to be at the forefront of the AI revolution. The energy and innovation we witness during our AI Day events, or conferences like Innov AI, and the groundbreaking work being done by AI startups on our platform give us immense confidence. We believe that Indian startups will lead globally in the deployment of AI technologies, pushing the boundaries of what is possible.
Also, India is amongst the fastest-growing economies in the world and is a global superpower in technology. Our public digital infrastructure is among the best, globally, positioning India as a leader in digital transformation. We foresee India’s leadership in utilizing technology for public good continuing to grow as we enter the AI era.
Our goal is to empower private and public sector organizations to realize this goal through a cutting-edge cloud platform. Over 15,000 businesses have already leveraged our platform, and we currently have over 3000 customers actively building on E2E Cloud. With E2E Networks empaneled by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) as a Cloud Service Provider (CSP), we are now well-positioned to support public sector initiatives and help public sector organizations leverage our data-sovereign infrastructure for their digital transformation needs. It also confirms that E2E Networks’ Cloud Services meets the stringent government standards of quality, availability and security.
At E2E Networks, we are dedicated to supporting and contributing to an #AatmanirbharBharat (self-reliant India). We will do so through our commitment to innovation, customer focus, and community engagement so that India leads from the front.
