AI总结
核心结论
AI 行业正从闭源模型主导转向寻求低成本开源替代方案，Baseten 通过提供推理软件基础设施，助力企业大幅降低 AI 成本，估值已攀升至 130 亿美元。
结构逻辑
- 背景引入：AI 产业重心从模型开发转向推理成本控制（Inference）。
- 事件驱动：Baseten 融资 15 亿美元，估值达 130 亿美元，采用双层估值结构。
- 行业痛点：闭源模型（OpenAI, Anthropic）虽然功能强大但极其昂贵，企业寻求更具经济效益的方案。
- 解决方案：Baseten 提供推理软件层，连接 20+ 云平台，让开源模型变得更易于运行、部署和定制。
- 竞争格局：推理细分市场兴起（如 Cerebras, Fireworks AI），开源模型性能差距正在缩小。
关键信息
- 公司与融资：Baseten (估值 110亿-130亿美元)，融资 15 亿美元。
- 核心业务：推理基础设施（Inference Software Layer）。
- 行业趋势：推理即吞噬 AI 行业（Inference eating the AI industry）；开源与闭源质量差距缩小。
- 关键数据：客户通过 Baseten 使用开源模型可将特定任务成本降至原有的 30%。
- 同类竞争者：Cerebras (芯片), Fireworks AI (推理), Factory (自动化代理)。
核心问题提炼
- 问题：为什么企业开始转向开源模型？
- 回答：主要是因为闭源模型成本太高，且开源模型的性能与前沿模型差距正在快速缩窄，企业希望在不牺牲核心能力的前提下降低运营成本。
正文
The four co-founders of Baseten: Amir Haghighat, Tuhin Srivastava, Phil Howes, and Pankaj Gupta.
Baseten CEO Tuhin Srivastava, second from left, says open-source AI models are ‘getting very, very good.’ Baseten
Baseten 首席执行官图欣·斯里瓦斯塔瓦（左数第二）表示，开源 AI 模型“变得非常非常优秀”。 巴塞顿
Quick Summary 快速总结
- Baseten is finalizing a $1.5 billion fundraising round at a valuation of up to $13 billion.
巴塞滕正在敲定一轮15亿美元的融资，估值高达130亿美元。 - Companies are seeking lower-cost open-source AI models as their quality gap with closed-source models narrows.
随着闭源模型质量差距缩小，企业正在寻求成本更低的开源 AI 模型。 - Baseten provides software and computing capacity for open-source models, enabling customers to reduce AI costs.
Baseten 为开源模型提供软件和计算能力，帮助客户降低 AI 成本。
This summary was generated with AI and reviewed by an editor. about how we use artificial intelligence in our journalism.
本摘要由 AI 生成并由编辑审核。关于我们如何在新闻报道中使用人工智能的信息。
Tech executives have touted this as the year in which inference —the process by which AI models use computing firepower to respond to queries—will eat up the entire AI industry. That is starting to bear fruit.
科技高管们大肆宣传今年，推 断 ——即 AI 模型利用计算能力回应查询的过程——将吞噬整个人工智能行业。这开始见效了。
Baseten, which specializes in providing software and computing capacity to companies tapping in to lower-cost AI models, is finalizing a $1.5 billion fundraising round. It will be a dual-tiered structure, with some investors putting in money at an $11 billion valuation and others at a $13 billion valuation, according to Baseten.
Baseten 专注于为利用低成本 AI 模型的公司提供软件和计算能力，目前正在敲定一轮 15 亿美元的融资。据 Baseten 介绍，这将是一个 双层结构 ，部分投资者估值为 110 亿美元，另一些投资者估值为 130 亿美元。
Much of the focus in the AI industry has been on the biggest labs including Anthropic and OpenAI, which mostly offer closed-source models to customers and users. While undoubtedly more expensive than the freely available open-source models, part of the value proposition of the AI giants is that they provide computing capacity for their users.
人工智能行业的重点大多集中在最大的实验室，包括 Anthropic 和 OpenAI ，这些实验室大多向客户和用户提供闭源模型。虽然无疑比免费开放的开源模型更昂贵，但这些 AI 巨头的价值主张之一在于它们为用户提供了计算能力。
“When you go to OpenAI or Anthropic, they obviously have their models, but they kind of give you all their inference infrastructure for free,” said Tuhin Srivastava, co-founder and chief executive of Baseten.
Baseten 联合创始人兼首席执行官 Tuhin Srivastava 说：“当你去 OpenAI 或 Anthropic 时，他们显然有自己的模型，但他们几乎免费提供所有推理基础设施。”
In the past few years, the quality gap between open-source and closed-source models has narrowed. At the same time, big companies and startups are starting to balk at escalating AI costs —leading enterprise customers to look for alternatives, such as open-source models.
近年来，开源与闭源模型之间的质量差距缩小了。与此同时，大型公司和初创企业开始对 不断上涨的人工智能成本 感到畏惧——这促使企业客户寻求开源模型等替代方案。
Open-source models are created in a way that any users can download and modify them for their own specific needs at no cost.
开源模型的创建方式是任何用户都可以免费下载和修改以满足自身需求。
The problem with open-source models is that they don’t come with the necessary computing to process user queries and carry out tasks. Enter Baseten, which has built an inference software layer on top of the computing capacity it is sourcing from 20 different cloud providers. Its software gives customers the connective tissue to run, optimize and train open-source models with their own data.
开源模型的问题在于它们没有配备处理用户查询和执行任务所需的计算能力。这时，Baseten 在从 20 家不同云服务提供商采购的计算能力基础上构建了推理软件层。其软件为客户提供连接工具，能够运行、优化和训练开源模型，并用自己的数据进行训练。
Companies focused on inference are becoming breakout ventures. Cerebras, a startup that has designed chips specifically for inference, had a blockbuster IPO in May and currently has a nearly $50 billion market capitalization.
专注于推理的公司正成为突破性企业。 Cerebras 是一家专门设计推理芯片的初创公司，今年五月进行了轰动 IPO，目前市值接近 500 亿美元。
Fireworks AI, another inference startup, raised funds in October at a $4 billion valuation. Factory, a startup founded in 2023 that has created autonomous-coding agents that plug into open-source and closed-source models, reached a valuation of $1.5 billion in April.
另一家推理初创公司 Fireworks AI 于 10 月以 40 亿美元 估值募集资金。Factory 是一家成立于 2023 年的初创公司，开发了能够接入开源和闭源模型的自主编码代理，4 月的估值达到 15 亿美元。
Altimeter Capital, Conviction, Spark Capital, Sands Capital and Wellington Management are co-leading the Baseten round. Current customers of Baseten include such companies as Cursor, Mercor and OpenEvidence. The tech-news site The Information earlier reported on Baseten’s fundraising.
The investment from institutional investors such as Wellington Management—which are typically more risk-averse and longer-term holders—is a testament to the staying power of companies like Baseten, investors said. Baseten will be Wellington’s first investment in the AI inference market, said Oz Nur, an investor at the asset manager who is focused on late-stage private companies.
Right now, the most popular open-source models come from China, including DeepSeek and Moonshot AI’s Kimi. U.S. companies are trying to gain ground in this arena, including Nvidia, which recently launched a family of open-source models called Nemotron.
“If you believe open-source models are always a handful of months behind the frontier models, it can serve a lot of use cases to customers while saving some share of their token usage for the frontier models where you need the absolute best,” said Nur.
With Baseten’s AI infrastructure offerings, other companies can tap in to open-source models and create tailored products at a much lower cost.
Most, if not all, of Baseten’s customers are using a mix of open-source and closed-source models for tasks. But tapping in to open-source models even for just a portion of tasks can help with costs.
Srivastava recalled one customer who told him of being able to perform a specific task at 30% of the cost required if a closed-source model had been used.
“At the highest level, what’s happening generally in the market is that the open-source models are getting very, very good,” said Srivastava. “And as open-source gets better, we are growing with it.”
Appeared in the June 20, 2026, print edition as ‘Cheaper Alternatives to AI Giants Are Focus of $13 Billion Startup Baseten’.