Lightning AI Launches AI Hub: A Game-Changing Marketplace for Enterprise AI Applications

Lightning's AI Hub shows AI app marketplaces are the next enterprise game-changer

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More The last mile problem in generative AI refers to the ability of enterprises to deploy applications to production. For many companies, the answer lies in marketplaces, which enterprises and developers can browse for applications akin to the Apple app store and download new programs onto their phones. Providers such as AWS Bedrock and Hugging Face have begun building marketplaces, offering ready-built applications from partners that customers can integrate into their stack. The latest entrant into the AI marketplace space is Lighting, the company that runs the open-source Python library PyTorch Lighting. Today it is launching AI Hub, a marketplace for both AI models and applications. Lighting CEO William Falcon told VentureBeat in an exclusive interview that AI Hub allows enterprises to find the application they want without having all the other platforms required to run it. Falcon noted that previously, enterprises had to find hardware providers that could run and host models. The next step was to find a way to deploy that model and make it into something useful. "But then you need those models to do something, and that's where the last mile issue is, that's the end thing enterprises use, and most of that is from standalone companies that offer an app," he said. "They bought all these tools, did a bunch of experiments, and then couldn't deploy them or really take them to that last mile." Falcon added that AI Hub "removes the need for specialized platforms." Enterprises can find any type of AI application they want in one place. This helps organizations stuck in the prototype phase move faster to deployment. AI Hub as an app store AI Hub hosts more than 50 APIs at launch, with a mix of foundation models and applications. It hosts many popular models, including DeepSeek-R1. Enterprises can access AI Hub and find applications built using Lightning's flagship product, Lightning AI Studio, or by other developers. They can then run these on Lightning's cloud or private enterprise cloud environments. Organizations can link their AWS or Google Cloud instances and keep data within their company's virtual private cloud. Falcon said this offers enterprises control over deployment. Lightning's AI Hub can work with most cloud providers. While it hosts open-source models, Falcon said the apps it hosts are not open-source, meaning users cannot alter their code. Lighting will offer AI Hub free for current customers, with 15 monthly credits to run applications. It will offer different pricing tiers for enterprises that want to connect to their private clouds. Falcon said AI Hub speeds up the deployment of AI applications within an organization because everything they need is on the platform. "Ultimately, as a platform, what we offer enterprises is iteration and speed," he said. "I'll give you an example: We have a Big Fortune 100 pharma company customer. Within a few days of when DeepSeek came out, they had it in production, already running." More AI marketplaces Lightning's AI Hub is not the first AI app marketplace, but its launch indicates how fast the enterprise AI space has moved since the launch of ChatGPT, which powered a generative AI boom in enterprise technology. API marketplaces still offer tons of SaaS applications to enterprises, and more companies are beginning to provide access to AI-powered applications like Apple's App Store to make them easier to deploy. AWS, for instance, announced the AWS Bedrock Marketplace for specialized foundation models and Buy with AWS -- which features services from AWS partners -- during re:Invent in December. Hugging Face, for its part, has launched Spaces, an AI app directory that allows developers to search and try out new apps, for general availability. Hugging Face CEO Clement Delangue posted on X that Spaces "has quietly become the biggest AI app store, with 400,000 total apps, 2,000 new apps created every day, getting visited 2.5M times every week!" He added that the launch of Spaces shows how "The future of AI will be distributed." Even OpenAI's GPT Store on ChatGPT technically functions as a marketplace for people to try out custom GPTs. Falcon noted that most technologies are offered in a marketplace, especially to reach many potential customers. In fact, this is not the first time Lightning has launched an AI marketplace. Lightning AI Studio, first announced in December 2023, lets enterprises create AI platforms using pre-built templates. "Every technology ends up here," said Falcon. "Through the evolution of any technology, you're going to end up in something like this. The iPhone's a good example. You went from point solutions to calculators. flashlights and notepads. Something like Slack did the same thing where you had an app to send files or photos before, but now it's all in one. There hasn't really been that for AI because it's still kind of new."

Lightning AI moves into the AI marketplace with ready-made enterprise applications - SiliconANGLE

Lightning AI moves into the AI marketplace with ready-made enterprise applications Lightning AI, which provides tools for developing artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, is getting into the business of packaging those models into ready-made enterprise applications with the launch of Lightning AI Hub. It's a marketplace where developers and other users can find prebuilt AI applications that are ready to be deployed at the click of a button via no-code application programming interfaces. In addition, developers can also list the AI models that power those applications separately within the marketplace. The startup, officially known as Grid.ai Inc., said it's trying to solve the "last mile" problem of generative AI deployment, referring to the difficulty that many companies face in putting AI to use in a productive way. The AI Hub is similar to the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, in that enterprises can browse for applications that are ready to go, without any tinkering required. The launch is a response to the likes of Amazon Web Services Inc. and Hugging Face Inc., which have both recently launched similar marketplaces for prebuilt AI applications. By giving enterprises access to ready-made applications, Lightning AI eliminates multiple hassles, such as the need to set up the infrastructure required to run and host AI models, and the coding required to integrate them into useful applications. Lightning AI is best known for its AI development platform, which provides developers with cloud workspaces and tools for creating generative AI and machine learning models and applications. It also provides tools that make it easier to use the open-source PyTorch Lightning AI development framework that was created by Lightning AI's chief executive William Falcon. It gives developers a choice of full-, low- or no-code environments to work with, where they can train and deploy AI models and build intelligent AI agents, among other things. With Lightning AI Hub, the company says it's helping enterprises that have struggled to get AI into production move beyond the prototyping phase. At launch, it lists more than 50 APIs, with a combination of prebuilt applications and AI models, including DeepSeek Ltd.'s popular, low-cost DeepSeek-R1 model. The company said many of the ready-made applications listed on the Hub were built using its flagship development platform Lightning AI Studio, while others come from third-party developers. Those apps can be deployed on Lightning's own cloud platform or public and private enterprise cloud environments. Additionally, customers can link them to their own AWS and Google Cloud instances, to ensure their data remains secure. The marketplace is ostensibly free for existing Lightning AI customers, though they're limited to 15 monthly credits for running those applications. For those who want more credits, and those who need to connect their own cloud environments, it plans to make a number of pricing tiers available. Falcon told VentureBeat in an interview that the main advantage of using the AI Hub is that it speeds up AI deployment, as it provides everything that's needed to get started on one platform. "We have a big Fortune 100 pharma company customer," he said. "Within a few days of when DeepSeek came out, they had it in production, already running." The launch of the AI Hub indicates a shift in the way enterprises are deploying and consuming AI technologies, with API-based marketplaces coming to the fore. For example, AWS's Amazon BedRock service offers a marketplace where customers can find and deploy specialized foundation models, along with Buy with AWS, which offers AI services and apps from third-parties. Another rival is Hugging Face, which last year launched the Spaces marketplace that now lists thousands of AI applications. This week, Hugging Face CEO Clement Delangue revealed that his company has evolved to become the "biggest AI app store" in the world. That may be so, but Falcon told VentureBeat that Lightning Hub is different because it not only provides access to advanced applications, but also tools that simplify their deployment, allowing customers to focus more on security. "AI Hub provides complete AI systems," Falcon said, adding that its rivals' marketplaces only list AI models. "It's the difference between selling an engine versus delivering a fully built car. Our approach ensures enterprises can actually drive AI adoption forward, not just experiment with it."