What does the next generation of AI infrastructure look like, and why are investors placing billions behind the companies building it?

In this NYSE Live interview, Erik Bernhardsson, CEO of Modal, discusses the company's recent $750 million Series C funding round, its growing role in the AI ecosystem, and why demand for AI infrastructure continues to accelerate across industries.

Kristen Scholer spoke with Bernhardsson about Modal's rapid growth, expanding AI platform, major enterprise customers, and how the company plans to deploy fresh capital following its latest fundraising milestone.

A major theme throughout the conversation is the evolution of cloud infrastructure in the age of artificial intelligence. Bernhardsson explains that AI is creating a fundamental shift in software development, requiring entirely new tools, workflows, and infrastructure platforms capable of supporting training, inference, and agent-based applications at scale.

The interview also explores how Modal plans to use the newly raised capital. The company expects to invest heavily in product development, engineering talent, computing capacity, and potential acquisitions as it continues expanding its platform and accelerating its roadmap.

Another key topic is Modal's role as an AI infrastructure provider. Rather than building consumer-facing applications, the company focuses on creating the building blocks that help other organizations develop and deploy advanced AI products and services.

The conversation further highlights Modal's growing customer base, which includes companies operating across AI, software, fintech, e-commerce, media, and biotechnology. According to Bernhardsson, organizations use Modal for a variety of workloads, including large language model inference, reinforcement learning, voice applications, video
generation, and scientific computing.

A significant focus of the discussion is the company's rapid growth trajectory. Bernhardsson notes that Modal has experienced substantial revenue expansion as demand for AI computing resources and supporting software infrastructure continues to increase across the technology sector.

The interview also examines the growing importance of AI development tools. As organizations build increasingly sophisticated AI-powered applications, they require infrastructure capable of scaling workloads dynamically while simplifying deployment and operational complexity.

Another major theme is Modal's sandboxing technology, which provides developers and AI systems with secure environments to generate, test, and run code. Bernhardsson explains that advances in large language models have dramatically expanded demand for these capabilities as AI-generated software becomes increasingly practical and useful.

The discussion further explores emerging applications for AI infrastructure beyond traditional software development. Modal is seeing growing interest from sectors including robotics, financial services, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and scientific research.

The interview also touches on the future of agentic AI and autonomous software systems. Bernhardsson believes businesses across virtually every industry will require AI infrastructure capable of supporting increasingly advanced use cases over the coming decade.

Looking ahead, Modal plans to continue expanding its platform, introducing new AI development tools, growing its computing capacity, and supporting developers as they build the next generation of AI-powered products and services.

Throughout the discussion, Bernhardsson shares insights on artificial intelligence, cloud computing, AI infrastructure, machine learning, large language models, software development, venture capital, cloud platforms, agentic AI, and the future of technology innovation.

Disclaimer: Informational content only. NYSE does not endorse or recommend investments, strategies, companies,
products, or services discussed.

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