distributed-training
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Dillon Rolnick
Dillon Rolnick is the chief executive of Nous Research, an applied AI lab building open-source, human-centric language models and the decentralized Psyche training network. A Vanderbilt graduate who came up through quantitative FX trading at Effex Capital and founded the litigation-claims firm Crysknife Capital, he moved from finance into AI research leadership, helping steer Nous through a Paradigm-led $50M Series A and, by 2026, a reported $75M round near a $1.5B valuation. His focus is proving that world-class models can be trained openly and over the internet rather than behind the walls of a few large labs.
Nous Research
Nous Research is an open-source AI lab founded in 2023 that builds world-class open-weight language models - most notably its Hermes family - and decentralized infrastructure for training them. Its Psyche network coordinates heterogeneous GPUs across the internet via the Solana blockchain, offering a community-driven, transparent alternative to closed labs like OpenAI. Backed by Paradigm and others, the company positions open, unrestricted models as a counterweight to centralized AI.
VESSL AI
VESSL AI is an MLOps and GPU-cloud company that helps AI teams train, deploy, and scale machine learning models without wrestling with infrastructure. Its platform pools GPU capacity across on-premise clusters and multiple cloud providers, automatically routing workloads to the cheapest available resources - a hybrid, multi-cloud approach the company says can cut GPU spend by up to 80%. Founded in 2020 by ex-Google and PUBG engineers and split between Seoul and the San Francisco Bay Area, VESSL serves roughly 50 enterprise customers and 2,000-plus users, and has expanded into AI-agent tooling with its open-source Hyperpocket project.