Strategic partnership positions OTP Group and the Ministry for Innovation and Technology (ITM) of Hungary as the European AI leader, enabling rapid transformation across the bank and the region for the next decade
PALO ALTO, Calif. and BUDAPEST, Hungary NOV. 11, 2021 – SambaNova Systems, the company building the industry’s most advanced software, hardware and solutions to run artificial intelligence (AI) applications, and OTP Group, the leading banking group in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), today announced a strategic partnership to build the fastest AI supercomputer in Europe. Together, they will deploy a multi-rack AI system, built on SambaNova Dataflow-as-a-Service GPT, for the most advanced language model in the world at a commercial bank. The system will be provided as a national AI resource to the public sector, private industry, and higher education in cooperation with the Ministry for Innovation and Technology (ITM) of Hungary.
“This is a unique collaboration between OTP Group, ITM, and SambaNova Systems to provide an incredible resource to the country and the Central and Eastern European region,” said Péter Csányi, Deputy CEO, Head of Digital Division at OTP Group. “We are pleased to announce that this groundbreaking supercomputer will represent a unique AI capability to build GPT-3 level language models for languages across CEE.”
With this partnership, OTP Group takes the European lead in AI research and development. The bank’s 17 million customers will experience faster, more personalized AI-based financial services with a supercomputer that can process large amounts of text-based information and data in a short time. By significantly speeding up workflows and taking over repetitive tasks, creating more space for service development and human creativity, the innovation will have a positive impact on OTP Group’s employees across Europe.
“OTP Group has an impressive industry-leading plan to make AI its key technology driver for the next decade. With the support of ITM, the AI environment that they’re creating will provide accessible, cutting-edge infrastructure for universities, research centers, public and private organizations across Hungary,” said Prof. Dr. László Palkovics, Minister for Innovation and Technology in Hungary.
The partnership between OTP Group and SambaNova Systems is a multi-year collaboration agreement to deploy SambaNova’s Dataflow-as-a-Service GPT solution and build a one-of-a-kind Hungarian language model, one of the most complicated languages in the world, to be followed by the unique languages of other OTP Group countries. With this implementation, the bank will transform itself with AI and the power of SambaNova GPT, cutting across every corner of the enterprise, from the front office to the back office.
“Large language models are quickly becoming the primary interface to the enterprise and AI will drive the transformation of industries. This deployment at OTP Group will showcase what’s possible with advanced AI across document-heavy industries, such as banking and financial services,” said Rodrigo Liang, co-founder and CEO of SambaNova Systems.
The deployment is a technical feat; the project, had it been developed and deployed in-house, would have taken the bank several years and extensive human capital resources. With SambaNova, OTP Group can deploy in days or weeks. Once deployed, this AI supercomputer will enable OTP Bank to advance forward with AI and make further inroads across the global financial market.
About SambaNova’s Dataflow-as-a-Service GPT
SambaNova’s flagship offering, Dataflow-as-a-Service™, is an extensible AI services platform, and enables organizations to jump-start AI initiatives overnight by augmenting existing capabilities and staffing with a simple subscription. The platform is powered by DataScale®, an integrated software and hardware platform delivering unrivaled performance, accuracy, scale and ease of use built on SambaNova’s Systems Reconfigurable Dataflow Architecture™.
With AI becoming a business necessity in the global economy, customers need complete solutions that can run at scale in a financially viable way. With an integrated full-stack system, including best-in-class AI models, software and hardware, SambaNova provides the most expansive, accessible and impactful AI applications in the world. To learn more about SambaNova’s Dataflow-as-a-Service™ for language with GPT, visit: https://sambanova.ai/solutions/gpt/
About OTP Group
OTP Group is the leading financial group in the CEE region with an exceptional growth track record, outstanding profitability and solid capital and liquidity positions. The banking group provides universal financial services to 17 million customers with 40,000 employees in 11 countries. It offers cutting-edge digital solutions and a network of more than 1,700 branches. OTP Group’s future oriented operations and development efforts focus on environmental, social and governance sustainability while aiming to strengthen its position as employer of choice throughout the Central and Eastern European region.
OTP Group is headquartered in Hungary and has a diversified and transparent ownership structure. The banking group has been listed on the Budapest Stock Exchange since 1995.
About SambaNova Systems
Customers turn to SambaNova to quickly deploy state-of-the-art generative AI capabilities within the enterprise. Our purpose-built enterprise-scale AI platform is the technology backbone for the next generation of AI computing.
Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, SambaNova Systems was founded in 2017 by industry luminaries, and hardware and software design experts from Sun/Oracle and Stanford University. Investors include SoftBank Vision Fund 2, funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Intel Capital, GV, Walden International, Temasek, GIC, Redline Capital, Atlantic Bridge Ventures, Celesta, and several others. Visit us at sambanova.ai or contact us at info@sambanova.ai. Follow SambaNova Systems on Linkedin.