AMPD Ventures Inc is at the forefront of revolutionizing internet computing and empowering content creators with its next-generation infrastructure for a smooth Metaverse experience.
The Vancouver, British Columbia-based company is positioning itself as a leader in the burgeoning Metaverse space. While many are still grasping the buzz around the new internet age, AMPD has mastered the foundation of strong virtual world connectivity - digital speed, or zero milliseconds latency.
“There's a combination of technologies required for the next-generation infrastructure,” AMPD CEO Anthony Brown told Proactive in an interview. “The first thing is the high-performance computing (HPC) architecture. It needs to be all hardware switched at high-speed networks that are zero milliseconds latency.”
The term ‘Metaverse’ - an umbrella term for virtual world services including virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) - gained popularity in the mainstream after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the transformation to Meta in October 2021.
Well before Metaverse became a household term, Brown told Proactive that he would often refer to the 2018 movie Ready Player One to better explain the concept of a virtual world in his pitch decks.
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Brown, who has led several successful tech companies since the 90s including Seven Group, a technology integrator focused on supercomputing, data management, and digital media, is now diving into the adventures of a 360-degree Metaverse transition.
“We had envisioned the infrastructure that's required to be able to run this [virtual world],” said Brown. “We've been able to get key customers in each of the target verticals including animation, visual effects, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and digital twinning.”
Empowering Metaverse content creators
To bring the vision to reality alongside key customers, AMPD acquired Vancouver-based Departure Lounge to enhance the company’s tech infrastructure for content creators.
Departure Lounge is a company working on technology and content initiatives related to the development of the Metaverse, which is currently hindered by barriers like latency and high costs, which makes accessing the services harder.
With the Departure Lounge acquisition, Brown said: “We are bringing down the cost to end-users and to content creators for these types of applications.”
Brown noted that the company is giving users a much higher performance experience, allowing them to push further to make content that's more latency-sensitive, like creating games and multimedia content that is beyond what is currently accessible. “It's absolutely a no-brainer,” he said on the acquisition of Departure Lounge.
Departure Lounge has the infrastructure like cameras and editing tools for creating 4D holograms, and volumetric capture.
“The impact of this technology is to be able to capture things in the real world and be able to display them in the metaverse as a full hologram,” Brown said. “That's the first thing that we're doing with Departure Lounge.”
The AMPD CEO noted that there are more things in the pipeline for Departure Lounge as its Metaverse initiatives continue to expand. For now, the acquisition helps the company to bring in top-line revenue and accelerate growth.
“It's key to understand that AMPD as a company is not just providing digital infrastructure computing for the Metaverse,” Brown said. “We're actually going to that next generation of tools and technologies required to create that content for members.”
AMPD’s next-generation tools
The company’s high-performance computing architecture allows access to a centralized data repository, unlike the normal computers that are connected to servers for accessing data.
The important piece of this technology is geographical proximity. “You have to deploy that architecture in areas where the end-user can be geographically close,” Brown said. “The speed of light comes into effect, and the closer you are, the lower the latency.”
AMPD computing can be accessed in the data center at 100 Gigabits per second via a direct dark fiber - at zero milliseconds latency.
However, not every customer will access this platform via direct fiber, according to Brown. “It acts as the platform over the internet, and that's fine. But even then, they still need to be geographically close, like in the same city, where the computers are being used.”
The company recently launched ‘pods’, or high-performance computing architecture, that will be placed into different cities around the world. Brown said that the next three on the list are Vancouver, Los Angeles, and Amsterdam.
“In LA, we've got Hollywood-related visual effects and all those companies would be able to access the platform,” Brown said. “Amsterdam because we get the best latency coverage for as wide an area in Europe as possible. We're able to connect from Amsterdam at less than 40 milliseconds from most of Western Europe from that one location.”
There will be more pods in Europe, he added, giving a broader footprint to AMPD, while providing content creators with all that they need.
AMPD’s growth strategy
Brown noted that it is only a matter of time before advanced technologies like 5G will be made available to users.
“It is going to be a race, and so organic growth is important. Getting those customers is extremely important,” he said. “To be able to maintain a leadership position in this race, we're going to have to do acquisitions as well.”
The company’s revenue model is based on the adoption of its services, or monthly recurring revenue model. For example, the company recently struck a deal with animation service provider Bardel Entertainment, where AMPD will provide its Tier 1 ultra-high-speed NVMe-based storage solution, allowing Bardel to build an animation effects platform.
“Now, it's a matter of moving to scale and being able to smooth the onboarding, refine the productization and get customers in on that product,” said Brown.
He added: “We're already seeing an increase in revenue and that inflection point, where the adoption rates are faster.”
Another aspect of growth relies on getting the company’s pods placed in more areas. “We want to serve our clients in the European market, and around the world,” said Brown.
The next stops for pods are going to be Sydney and Toronto, which will be rolling out in early and mid-2022 as the company continues to make a global impact with its tech services, the AMPD CEO added.
Brown noted that overall, it's not the ability to sell products, but the ability to get the revenue recognized and get enough computing out there.
AMPD has built a strong foundation that differentiates it from other organizations in the space, especially those catering to Metaverse content creators.
“We're small,” Brown said. “We just hit that inflection point where we raised enough capital to properly accelerate the business, [there is] enough fuel in the tank here.”
Contact Ritika at ritika@proactiveinvestors.com