Preferred Networks, Inc. (PFN) (hereinafter, "PFN") is a leading technology firm established in March 2014 in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo. The company develops advanced technologies such as machine learning, robotics, and deep learning technology. The company utilizes its know-how in advanced technologies to create innovative products such as image processing systems and material discovery simulators.

PFN's outstanding development results are demonstrated by the many awards that the company has won. For example, its paper on PFP, the core technology that supports Matlantis&trade, has steadily gained recognition and has been selected for the Editor's Highlights in Nature Communications.

On April 26, 2022, PFN released the AI-based automatic character generation platform Crypko&trade. PFN uses a large number of Alibaba Cloud services in the system infrastructure of Crypko. In particular, Alibaba Cloud Container Service for Kubernetes（ACK）, Object Storage Service（OSS）, and Elastic Compute Service（ECS） received high praise from the team at PFN.

Crypko™, released by PFN, is a character generation platform that can automatically generate and edit face and upper body illustrations. PFN developed Crypko so that everyone can easily enjoy creative activities through the power of the latest technologies, even if they lack the necessary skills or time to draw pictures. Crypko runs on a browser, so it can be used without a high-spec computer environment.

PFN started developing Crypko in 2018 as a facial illustration generation model using Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN), which is an image generation model that utilizes deep learning.

The sixth generation of Crypko has been recently released. It is now possible to generate an illustration of not only the face but also the upper body of a high-quality character, with the same quality as drawn by a human illustrator.

Furthermore, users can create a new character by fusing generated characters. The new character inherits the characteristics of the fused characters. Users can also modify attributes such as hair color, eye color, and facial expressions to their own preferences.
In addition, users can join the new creative community on the Crypko platform by registering and publishing their generated characters in the library, and adding other users' characters to favorites.

When developing Crypko, PFN faced the issue of how to build a GPU-based service environment.

It was also necessary to prepare a robust IT service infrastructure to ensure widespread use of the service.

PFN selected Alibaba Cloud for preparing the GPU-based service environment and building a robust IT infrastructure.

The main deciding factors were cost performance and extensive support for development and operations.

Alibaba Cloud provides two billing methods for ECS instances: hourly pay-as-you-go and discounted monthly subscription. PFN uses an ECS instance as the development server for Crypko. The cost of the development server can be optimized by allocating only the necessary amount of resources at the necessary time.

Alibaba Cloud also provides a wide variety of services, including other machine learning platforms and security products. Through its abundant services, Alibaba Cloud helps solve the challenges that customers face.

"When using Alibaba Cloud, it was easy to find a service that meets our requirements," explains Zhu. "Other services not mentioned here are also easy to use, and we didn't have any problems using them. We are now using additional services such as Direct Mail."

Moreover, when questions were raised about the solutions offered by Alibaba Cloud, PFN was able to use a chat tool for communicating directly with Alibaba Cloud engineers. This enabled efficient resolution of questions and consulting on issues.

"Even now, Alibaba Cloud quickly responds to all of our questions, regardless of if it is a business day or not," says Zhu when praising the support.

PFN leverages Alibaba Cloud Elastic GPU Service in building model inference platform based on Cloud Native AI, in aim to improve GPU utilization and reduce cost with GPU sharing technoledge, GPU utilization has been increased up to 4x as result.
PFN uses various Alibaba Cloud services. In particular, the following three services are highly evaluated by PFN:

Alibaba Cloud Container Service
Alibaba Cloud Container Service allows you to start and manage Docker applications in a cluster of ECS instances or in a serverless cluster.

"Kubernetes was extremely easy to set up, and the environment we built was robust and relatively easy to operate," says Zhu.

Object Storage Service (OSS)
OSS enables flexible storage of data in various scenarios such as backup, restoration, data lakes, and data archives. Furthermore, OSS is designed for 99.9999999999% durability and runs on industry-leading SLA.

"We use OSS for hosting of websites and static files," explains Zhu. "It is very easy and convenient to set up."

Elastic Compute Service (ECS)
ECS is a service that provides a flexible and secure virtual server environment for all cloud hosting needs. With just a few clicks in the web-based management console, you can deploy an ECS instance, and increase or decrease the capacity of the instance based on real-time needs.

"In addition to optimizing the cost of the development server, ECS offers a wide variety of instances with GPU. We were able to use the instances according to our development purpose," says Zhu.

The following are five other services mainly used by PFN:

ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL
ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL is an online database service that supports MySQL 5.5, 5.6, 5.7, and 8.0.

ApsaraDB RDS for MySQL uses AliSQL developed by Alibaba Cloud. It also employs features such as thread pool, parallel replication, and implicit primary key to improve IOPS and further stabilize database instances.

ApsaraDB for Redis
ApsaraDB for Redis has two editions: ApsaraDB for Redis Community Edition and ApsaraDB for Redis Enhanced Edition (Tair). Tair is compatible with open source Redis. ApsaraDB for Redis supports the primary/secondary, clustering, and read/write splitting architectures, and achieves low latency, high throughput, and elastic scalability.

Server Load Balancer (SLB)
SLB is a high-performance load balancing service. Two types of SLB are available: Classic Load Balancer (CLB) and Application Load Balancer (ALB). CLB runs at Layer 4 and supports up to 100,000 queries per second (QPS). ALB is developed based on Alibaba Cloud Apsara Network 2.0 and supports up to 1,000,000 QPS.

cGPU service
The cGPU service is the container sharing technology based on the kernel virtual GPU isolation developed by Alibaba Cloud. Multiple containers share a single GPU. This isolates and secures your business, improves GPU utilization, and then saves costs.

Elastic GPU Service
Elastic GPU Service (EGS) is a GPU-based computing service ideal for scenarios such as deep learning, video processing, scientific computing, and visualization. EGS solutions use the following GPUs: AMD FirePro S7150, NVIDIA Tesla M40, NVIDIA Tesla P100, NVIDIA Tesla P4, and NVIDIA Tesla V100.

PFN uses these services to build a robust IT infrastructure for supporting Crypko.

Notice: ApsaraDB for Redis and Tair have been merged and renamed to Tair (Redis® OSS-compatible) since September 2024.

Zhu has high expectations for PolarDB in the future.

"PolarDB is a cloud-native database service that is highly compatible with MySQL and PostgreSQL. I look forward to trying it out in the future," says Zhu.

In addition to the services introduced here, Alibaba Cloud is developing new services.

Alibaba Cloud will continue to support PFN through an extensive range of services.