The Flower Labs Intelligence platform allows applications to automatically switch between local and cloud-based AI models, and has attracted $23.6 million in investment.
Startup Flower Labs has just released a preview version of Flower Intelligence - a distributed cloud platform for AI applications with the ability to flexibly switch between local and cloud processing. This is seen as an important step in combining the advantages of both AI processing methods.
Mozilla has become the first customer, integrating this platform into the Assist summarization feature for the Thunderbird email application extension. The highlight of Flower Intelligence is its ability to control mobile, PC, and web AI applications, with the default operating mode being local processing to ensure speed and security, and then automatically switching to the cloud when more computing power is needed.
Competition in the field of hybrid local-cloud AI
Although tech giants like Microsoft and Apple have deployed similar approaches in their ecosystems, Flower Labs stands out with a strategy of building an AI platform entirely based on open models, including Meta's Llama, China's DeepSeek, and Mistral.
Ryan Sipes, Mozilla Thunderbird's managing director, said Flower Intelligence helps Mozilla deploy AI on devices that "operate locally with the most sensitive data." Flower Labs claims its cloud service - Flower Confidential Remote Compute - uses end-to-end encryption and other security techniques to protect user data.
From Tuesday, developers have been able to sign up for early access to Flower Intelligence. The company also revealed plans to expand the service in the near future, adding features such as model customization, fine-tuning, and "federated" training on the cloud.
Flower Labs is planning to hold an online and in-person conference in London on March 26, where they promise to announce more details and features of Flower Intelligence.
Established in 2023, Flower Labs has raised around $23.6 million from investors including Felicis, Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue, Betaworks, and the Pioneer Fund. Brave, the open-source web browser, is the company's first partner and collaborator.
