Hongik University Adopts Theta EdgeCloud Hybrid for AI Research

Theta Labs, a pioneer in decentralized cloud infrastructure for AI, media, and entertainment, has announced that the High-Performance Data Processing & Analysis Lab at Hongik University, led by Associate Professor Eun-Sung Jung, has joined as a new Theta EdgeCloud customer and research partner. This partnership marks Hongik University as the 21st academic institution to adopt Theta EdgeCloud Hybrid, a decentralized hybrid GPU platform designed to accelerate research in AI model training, big data workflows, and real-time IoT systems.

The lab at Hongik University specializes in scalable computing platforms for AI, distributed systems, IoT, and cloud-native architectures. It has received support from various organizations, including the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy in Korea, Institute for Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation, the Korea Meteorological Institute, and Argonne National Laboratory. Prof. Jung’s team is known for bridging academic study with practical systems engineering, conducting impactful research across high-performance and data-intensive environments.

Through this collaboration, the lab will utilize Theta EdgeCloud Hybrid to enhance its research capabilities. Prof. Eun-Sung Jung highlighted the value of Theta’s EdgeCloud Hybrid, stating, “Theta’s EdgeCloud Hybrid is a valuable resource for pushing the limits of our data-driven research. With high-performance and highly cost-effective GPU capacity readily available, we can accelerate our work across AI/ML, big data infrastructure, and edge-based IoT analytics. Not all of our AI jobs require centralized high-powered GPUs and that’s where EdgeCloud’s NVIDIA 3000s and 4000s GPUs are particularly attractive.”

The High-Performance Data Processing & Analysis Lab at Hongik University focuses on designing intelligent systems that solve large-scale computing problems in both academic and industrial contexts. Their research spans high-performance computing for AI/ML, cloud computing for big data, and IoT data analysis. This includes scalable training of large AI/ML models, on-device machine learning, hybrid classical/quantum learning frameworks, development of hyper-converged containerized platforms, dynamic resource provisioning, efficient storage systems using SSD/NVRAM, deep learning-based time-series prediction, lightweight AI for edge devices, and SDN-enabled IoT data flow optimization.

Hongik University joins a distinguished global network of academic institutions using EdgeCloud hybrid, including Stanford University, Seoul National University, KAIST, NTU Singapore, and professional partners like the NBA’s Houston Rockets. This partnership underscores Theta’s mission to support open, scalable AI development through decentralized compute. Mitch Liu, CEO and Co-Founder of Theta Labs, expressed enthusiasm about the collaboration, stating, “We’re thrilled to welcome Prof. Jung and his team to the Theta EdgeCloud ecosystem. The primary reason Hongik University selected EdgeCloud over other platforms is the availability of high-performance NVIDIA A100s and H100s and highly cost-effective community run NVIDIA 3090s, 4070s/4080s/4090s which became available in the GPU marketplace on June 25.”

Hongik University is one of South Korea’s most respected institutions, with a strong reputation in engineering, computer science, and art & design. Known for fostering interdisciplinary research and industry collaboration, Hongik has campuses in Seoul and Sejong and continues to support global partnerships in emerging technologies such as AI, IoT, and cloud computing.

Theta Labs is the leading provider of decentralized cloud infrastructure for AI, media, and entertainment powered by a global network of 30,000 distributed edge nodes and a native blockchain. Backed by Samsung, Sony, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments and Creative Artists Agency, Theta is among the top AI tokens on Binance.com and top 10 DePIN blockchains by market capitalization on Coingecko. Theta’s enterprise validator and governance council is composed of global market leaders including Google, Samsung, CAA and Binance. Recently launched Theta EdgeCloud is the first hybrid cloud-edge computing AI platform with over 80 PetaFLOPS of on-demand distributed GPU compute power. EdgeCloud now counts over 40 global customers including 4 of the top 5 South Korea universities, top professional sports teams including NHL’s Las Vegas Knights, NBA’s Houston Rockets and global esports teams FlyQuest and Gen.G.