Groq

Groq is an AI infrastructure company that designed custom chips (Language Processing Units or LPUs) specifically for LLM inference. Their cloud service provides extremely fast inference speeds, often 10x or more faster than GPU-based alternatives.

The Groq Cloud offers API access to popular open models (Llama, Mixtral, Gemma) running on their LPU infrastructure. Key differentiators include: inference speeds of 500+ tokens per second, consistent low latency, and competitive pricing. The experience is similar to other LLM APIs but dramatically faster.

For AI engineers, Groq is compelling for: real-time applications where latency matters, high-throughput batch processing, and cost optimization through faster inference. The speed enables new interaction patterns that feel more natural. Trade-offs include: model selection (only open models), and evaluating whether speed advantages justify any integration effort over existing providers.