As large-scale machine learning becomes increasingly GPU-centric, modern high-performance hardware like NVMe storage and RDMA networks (InfiniBand or specialized NICs) are becoming more widespread. To fully leverage these resources, it’s crucial to build a balanced architecture that avoids GPU underutilization. In this talk, we will explore various strategies to address this challenge by effectively utilizing these advanced hardware components. Specifically, we will present experimental results from building a Kubernetes-native distributed caching layer, utilizing NVMe storage and high-speed RDMA networks to optimize data access for PyTorch training.
As large-scale machine learning becomes increasingly GPU-centric, modern high-performance hardware like NVMe storage and RDMA networks (InfiniBand or specialized NICs) are becoming more widespread. To fully leverage these resources, it’s crucial to build a balanced architecture that avoids GPU underutilization. In this talk, we will explore various strategies to address this challenge by effectively utilizing these advanced hardware components. Specifically, we will present experimental results from building a Kubernetes-native distributed caching layer, utilizing NVMe storage and high-speed RDMA networks to optimize data access for PyTorch training.
Videos:
Presentation Slides:
Complete the form below to access the full overview:
.png)
Videos

Fireworks AI is a leading inference cloud provider for Generative AI, powering real-time inference and fine-tuning services for customers' applications that require minimal latency, high throughput, and high concurrency. Their GPU infrastructure spans 10+ clouds and 15+ regions, serving enterprises and developers deploying production AI workloads at scale.
With model sizes reaching 70GB+, Fireworks AI faced critical challenges: eliminating cold start delays, managing highly concurrent model downloads across GPU clusters, reducing tens of thousands in annual cloud egress costs, and automating manual pipeline management that consumed 4+ hours weekly. They chose Alluxio as their solution to scale with their hyper-growth without requiring dedicated infrastructure resources.
In this tech talk, Akram Bawayah, Software Engineer at Fireworks AI, and Bin Fan, VP of Technology at Alluxio, share how Fireworks AI uses Alluxio to power their multi-cloud inference infrastructure.
They discuss:
- How Fireworks AI uses Alluxio in its high-performance model distribution system to deliver fast, reliable inference across multiple clouds
- How implementing Alluxio distributed caching achieved 1TB/s+ model deployment throughput, reducing model loading from hours to minutes while significantly cutting cloud egress costs
- How to simplify infrastructure operations and seamlessly scale model distribution across multi-cloud GPU environments

