Hey Folks, When most investors think about AI infrastructure, the usual suspects come to mind: Nvidia, AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud.
But here's what the crowd is missing—not every company building AI can actually afford these giants.
A startup with a promising AI idea needs GPU compute power to train models and run inference. But AWS wants to charge a premium, and good luck getting priority access to their best hardware when you're competing against Fortune 500 companies with endless budgets and established relationships.
Enter DigitalOcean (DOCN).
AI Cloud for the Rest of Us
DigitalOcean has quietly positioned itself as the go-to cloud infrastructure provider for startups, small businesses, and developers who need powerful AI capabilities without the complexity and cost of hyperscalers.
This is a classic pick-and-shovel play on AI's long tail—the thousands of builders who aren't big tech but still need serious compute.
The thesis is straightforward: whether individual AI products succeed or fail, they all need to pay for compute. DigitalOcean is capturing the segment that hyperscalers have underserved—companies that find AWS too expensive and face waitlists for premium GPU access.
The numbers from their latest earnings tell the story:
- Over 19,000 AI agents have been created on their platform
- 7,000 of those agents are already deployed in production environments
- AI-native customers—companies specifically building AI products—more than doubled year-over-year
- Just signed an eight-figure, multi-year contract with a global systems integrator to build AI agents on their platform
That last point deserves attention. An eight-figure annual contract isn't startup money—that's a serious enterprise deal landing on a platform most investors have never heard of. | 
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