Akshat Bubna, the co-founder and CTO of Modal Labs, first captured national attention not in a boardroom, but on a global academic stage as the first Indian to clinch a gold medal at the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI). Today, that same competitive, problem-solving ethos is the bedrock of his billion-dollar artificial intelligence infrastructure company. Bubna believes the strategic thinking honed during his teenage years at such competitions is directly applicable to building the foundational tools for the next generation of AI enterprises.
The Olympiad Foundation: Breeding Ground for Tech Founders
Bubna argues that India has historically underestimated the value of global Olympiads. "The community is small, but many of the people who compete go on to build remarkable companies," he stated. He cites the founders of the $10-billion AI firm Cognition as fellow alumni from the IOI circuit. This pattern is reflected in Modal's own hiring strategy, which actively recruits from competitive programming backgrounds.
"Programming competitions teach you that most problems are solvable," Bubna explained. "You also learn to work incrementally – start with something simple that works, then improve it over time. That's exactly how we've built Modal." This iterative, solution-oriented approach has been central to the company's philosophy.
Building AI-Native Infrastructure from Scratch
Founded in 2021 by Bubna and Swedish engineer Erik Bernhardsson, Modal Labs creates what it terms "AI-native infrastructure." This is a specialized software layer that enables developers to run large-scale machine learning workloads without depending on outdated legacy systems. Frustrated by recurring infrastructure issues during his tenure at Scale AI, Bubna identified a critical gap. "Tools like Kubernetes weren't designed for large-scale ML workloads or global GPU management," he noted. "People keep trying to retrofit old systems for new use cases, but building from scratch lets you design for today's needs."
To address this, Modal developed its own file system, container runtime, and scheduler, achieving sub-second container startups and low-latency routing. The platform aggregates GPU and CPU capacity from major cloud providers like AWS, Azure, Oracle, and Google Cloud, allowing for instant code deployment without server management. "Our focus is developer experience," Bubna emphasized. "With Modal, you can make a change and deploy it globally in seconds. That speed really matters to teams."
Scaling a Unicorn and the Talent Bottleneck
The New York-based startup's vision has attracted significant investor confidence. In September, Modal raised $87 million in a Series B funding round led by Lux Capital, propelling the company's valuation to approximately $1.1 billion. Its client roster includes industry heavyweights like Meta, Substack, Suno, Scale AI, and India's own Zomato.
Modal operates on a pay-as-you-go model, letting enterprises scale up to thousands of GPUs for short periods, ensuring costs align with actual usage. Its platform encompasses five core products—Inference, Training, Batch, Sandboxes, and Notebooks—covering the entire machine-learning lifecycle.
While GPU availability remains a short-term challenge for the AI industry, Bubna sees a bigger hurdle. "The bigger bottleneck is talent," he asserted. "Despite all the talk about AI replacing engineers, you still need very strong people to build these systems." Consequently, Modal, with around 70 employees across New York, San Francisco, and Stockholm, continues to recruit aggressively from programming competition networks, valuing their high ceiling in software design.
Reflections on India's Deep-Tech Ecosystem
Reflecting on India's potential, Bubna pointed out a systemic gap. He believes limited research infrastructure makes it difficult to build deep-tech companies domestically. "When I wanted to study machine learning, India didn't feel like the place where you could do that," he recalled. "People do well at IITs, then move elsewhere to pursue research. Fixing that gap is crucial."
His advice for young Indian Olympiad hopefuls is straightforward and empowering: "It starts with believing you can do it. There's so much talent in India – if we push harder in this direction, we can do far better." For Bubna, the journey from an IOI podium to the helm of a unicorn startup is a testament to where that belief and talent can lead.
