The 5-step pipeline.
How energy turns into a deployed, financed, offtake-matched cluster, and what SLYD does at every step.
How SLYD works →Platform
SLYD Cloud
New and recovered GPU systems.
NVIDIA and AMD systems through documented manufacturer and qualified channel supply, with financing and deployment coordinated on the same platform.
Explore GPU hardware →By accelerator
Infrastructure and services
Compute, hardware, and power in one book.
Browse available GPU capacity by accelerator, configuration, region, and price, or bring supply to qualified demand.
Open marketplace →Compute
Bring supply
For buyers
Start with an indicative structure.
Tell us deal size, structure, and offtake. Any range is preliminary and subject to underwriting, diligence, and documentation.
Open Configure →For lenders
GPU market trends and deployment playbooks.
Infrastructure best practices, hardware comparisons, and industry analysis from the SLYD team.
Read the blog →Company
Custom AI infrastructure solutions
Some requirements do not map onto a standard system. This is the process for turning one of those into a documented architecture, with the assumptions visible and a no-go available as a legitimate answer.
What is custom AI infrastructure work?
Custom AI infrastructure work converts a workload, business objective, site constraint, or unusual procurement requirement into a documented architecture and execution plan. The result may include compute, networking, storage, power, cooling, software, sourcing, financing, and deployment workstreams, with scope and responsibilities defined for the specific engagement.
Signals that a standard configuration will not work
If none of these apply, a standard system selection is faster and cheaper. Start at AI infrastructure planning instead.
The requirement does not fit a catalog system
Unusual precision requirements, mixed workload types on shared capacity, or performance targets that no standard configuration obviously satisfies.
Multiple facilities, technologies, or sourcing paths
Projects that combine sites, vendors, or new and recovered supply, where the interactions between those choices are the hard part.
A constraint is driving the design
Power, cooling, space, export control, timing, or capital structure setting the boundaries, rather than the workload choosing freely.
Upgrade, retrofit, phased build, or mixed fleet
Deployments that have to work alongside something that already exists, which is usually harder than starting from nothing.
Unusual integration or validation dependencies
Requirements to interoperate with specific systems, meet particular validation criteria, or satisfy nonstandard commercial conditions.
The requirement itself is not settled
Cases where the useful first deliverable is a clear statement of what is actually needed, which is a legitimate and common starting point.
What discovery works through
Not a form to complete before the first conversation. These are the things that eventually have to be known, and the gaps are part of the output.
- Business objective and workload
- Users, customers, or service model
- Performance and capacity goals
- Data and security requirements
- Location and facility constraints
- Current environment
- Timeline and decision gates
- Budget or commercial structure
- Internal and external stakeholders
- Known risks and unknowns
Optional, scoped, and agreed at the start
Most engagements need a few of these. Which ones are in scope is agreed up front and changed through the change process, not expanded quietly.
| Workstream | Question it answers |
|---|---|
| Compute | Which accelerator and system architecture the workload actually requires |
| Networking | What fabric, topology, and components the communication pattern needs |
| Storage | What capacity and sustained throughput keeps the accelerators busy |
| Power | What the site can deliver, and what the design requires of it |
| Cooling | Which thermal architecture the equipment and the building can both support |
| Software | What stack has to run, and whether the target platform supports it |
| Security | What the data and tenancy requirements imply for the architecture |
| Sourcing | Which supply paths exist for the equipment, and what each involves |
| Financing | Whether an eligible financing or lease structure fits the transaction |
| Deployment | What execution requires, once a design is approved |
| Operations | Who runs it afterwards, and what they need to be able to do so |
What the engagement produces
Documents that let someone else check the reasoning, not a recommendation that has to be taken on trust.
Requirements baseline
What the system has to do, agreed and written down, separated from how it might do it.
Assumption and evidence register
Every assumption the analysis depends on, what it is based on, and what would change if it turned out to be wrong. This is the artifact that makes the rest reviewable.
Architecture options and tradeoffs
More than one credible option, with what each one costs and gives up. A single option presented without alternatives is a recommendation, not an analysis.
Compatibility and dependency matrix
What depends on what, including the facility, software, and supplier dependencies that are easy to discover late.
Budgetary bill of materials, where supportable
Produced only where the inputs justify it, and labelled with what it assumes and when those assumptions expire.
Site-readiness requirements
What the building must provide for the design to be deployable, and which of those things do not yet exist.
Risk and decision register
Open risks with responses, and the decisions taken with the reasoning behind them, so later teams can see why.
Recommended path and next gate
What to do next, and what specifically has to be true to pass the following decision point.
Estimates stay labelled as estimates
Early figures are built on assumptions. Equipment numbers firm up when supplier quotations arrive, facility numbers firm up after a site survey, and commercial numbers firm up when terms are agreed. Until then they are estimates, and they are labelled that way rather than hardening quietly into a plan of record.
The assumption register is versioned for exactly this reason. When an assumption is replaced by a verified fact, the change is visible and its effect on the rest of the analysis can be traced rather than guessed at.
SLYD publishes no performance improvement percentage, cost or TCO reduction figure, scaling multiple, response time, minimum engagement value, standard schedule, support period, or compliance attestation for this work. Each of those depends on a specific engagement, and a number published without its baseline and conditions is not a claim about anything.
Where a scoping engagement can end
All five of these are successful outcomes. An engagement that can only conclude one of them is not doing analysis.
Hardware sourcing
The design is settled and the requirement moves to evaluating sourcing paths for the equipment.
ProceedFinancing evaluation
The capital structure is the open question, and eligible financing or lease structures are evaluated. Financing is not guaranteed.
ProceedDeployment
Design and equipment plan are approved, and the project moves to execution and handoff.
RedirectRent rather than own
The analysis shows the utilization profile does not justify ownership, and marketplace capacity is the better answer.
Pause or no-go
The requirement is not yet deployable, the site cannot support it, or the economics do not work. Reaching that conclusion early is the cheapest possible version of finding out.
Custom infrastructure questions
When is custom infrastructure scoping appropriate?
When the requirement does not map cleanly onto a standard system. That usually means the workload is unusual, the project spans multiple facilities or sourcing paths, power, cooling, space, export, timing, or capital constraints are driving the design, the deployment is an upgrade, retrofit, phased build, or mixed fleet, or there are unusual integration, validation, or commercial dependencies.
How is this different from deployment services?
This page covers discovery and architecture definition: working out what should be built and whether it can be. Deployment services cover execution: turning an approved design into installed, validated, documented infrastructure. A project often moves from one to the other, and the handoff between them is a defined gate rather than an assumption.
What comes out of a scoping engagement?
Decision artifacts rather than a sales document. Typically a requirements baseline, an assumption and evidence register, architecture options with their tradeoffs, a compatibility and dependency matrix, a budgetary bill of materials where that is supportable, site-readiness requirements, a risk and decision register, and a recommended path with the next decision gate named.
Does every engagement include every workstream?
No. Compute, networking, storage, power, cooling, software, security, sourcing, financing, deployment, and operations are optional scoped workstreams. Most engagements need a few of them. Which ones are in scope is agreed at the start and adjusted through the change process rather than expanded silently.
How reliable are early estimates?
They are estimates, and they stay labelled as estimates until the inputs behind them are verified. Equipment figures firm up when supplier quotations arrive, facility figures firm up after a site survey, and commercial figures firm up when terms are agreed. The assumptions behind every estimate are kept visible and versioned so it is always clear what a number depends on.
Can a scoping engagement conclude that we should not proceed?
Yes, and that is a valid and useful outcome. A recommendation to pause, to rent capacity instead of buying, to change site, or to not proceed at all is a legitimate result of doing the analysis properly. An engagement that can only ever conclude buy is not analysis.
Does SLYD publish performance or cost improvement figures for custom work?
No. Performance improvement, cost reduction, and scaling multiples depend entirely on the baseline, the workload, and the design, and a figure published without all three stated is not a claim about anything. Where a specific engagement produces measurable results, those belong to that project and are shared with that customer.
What is needed to start a scoping conversation?
The business objective and workload, who or what it serves, performance and capacity goals, data and security requirements, location and facility constraints, the current environment, timeline and decision gates, budget or commercial structure, the internal and external stakeholders involved, and the known risks and unknowns. The unknowns are as useful as the knowns.
Start a scoping conversation
Bring the objective, the constraints, and the parts you are unsure about. The unknowns are usually where the useful work is.
Page updated: August 18, 2026