AI infrastructure company Runware is making headlines again, just months after unveiling the Sonic Inference Pod—a modular data center built in a factory and shipped to customers ready to install. Now the company has bigger ambitions. It told TechCrunch it wants to build a factory that assembles these pods on a production line, much like cars.
The idea isn't entirely new. Companies like Crusoe and Schneider Electric also sell prefabricated pods, but Runware claims it can ship its pods faster.
Scaling to Nearly 1 Gigawatt per Month
Flaviu Radulescu, co-founder and CEO of Runware, told TechCrunch that the company plans to scale production at its Romania-based factory to 30 megawatts of data center capacity per day by 2028—nearly 1 gigawatt per month. That's a substantial amount of capacity: at that pace, Runware would produce roughly as much in a year as the entire U.S. was expected to add in data center power in 2026, about 10 gigawatts. It also reflects an industry-wide push to deploy data centers faster and more efficiently.
Nvidia, for example, announced its Vera Rubin AI factories and the DSX POD earlier this year. Both are designed to make it faster and easier for companies to build their own AI data centers. The difference with Runware, though, is that it says it has actually built a factory rather than just designed the infrastructure that would let others build one.
Two Factories and a 48-Hour Target
Radulescu said Runware will gradually increase production starting next year and that it already has two factories—one it has used for a few years to build the pods, and a second it began building earlier this year. The second is expected to be finished within months and go online early next year.
Runware will manufacture the modular data centers on an assembly line. Customers can provide their own site to assemble them, or Runware can find one for them. Radulescu said Runware aims to bring the pods online within 48 hours. That time covers installation and setup, not build time. A pod once took three weeks to build, but it will soon take one day as production ramps up, according to the company. Runware will provide spare parts if components fail. Customers can also rent compute from Runware or supply their own GPUs and pay a monthly fee for the pods and operations. Power and internet are charged separately, he said.
Customization and GPU Lead Times
The pods can also be customized to customer preferences, Radulescu said. They have a standard design but can be configured to meet customer requirements and support the latest GPU chips. Chips can take a long time to arrive after they're ordered, which works in Runware's favor. "Our pod delivery times are also shorter than current GPU lead times, giving us time to adapt the infrastructure to the hardware being ordered," he said. "For new GPU generations, our in-house hardware team can design, build, and test components itself, allowing us to adapt quickly."
Execution Is the Real Test
Right now, these are all plans—execution is the test. The factory will need a lot of people, inventory, supply chain logistics, and money. There are cautionary tales about reinventing manufacturing, notably the electric vehicle startup Arrival, once valued at over $13 billion, which struggled to mass-produce electric vehicles cost-effectively compared with traditional plants. Runware, which has raised more than $60 million to date, said it plans to raise a Series B, but for now it is finishing and launching the factory with the $50 million Series A it raised last December.
"Our cost structure is very different," Radulescu said, explaining how Runware seeks to avoid Arrival's fate.
via TechCrunch