May 2020

Cirrus Update
A Synapse Magazine interview
with Gregg Barrett
Cirrus Update — Synapse Magazine Interview, May 2020 2

Getting Started

Daniel Mpala (Deputy Editor, Synapse

Magazine):
What inspired the establishment of the Cirrus AI
initiative?
Gregg Barrett (CEO, Cirrus AI):
Allow me to do a quick recap of what Cirrus is.
Cirrus is Africa’s AI initiative to establish a world
class AI capability to support the research and
commercialisation efforts of academia and industry
on the continent and beyond.
Cirrus was conceived over a decade ago but work on
the first formal proposal started in 2017. At the time
my brother (Dr Dean Barrett), who works at the
Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS),
was seeking a way to apply machine learning to the
vast amount of data they were producing. Working
with his fellow collaborator at Wits University, Dr
Roy Forbes, it soon became apparent that Wits had
similar needs and should be incorporated into the
requirement.
From the start the vision for Cirrus was clear. Back in
2005 I had done some work on establishing an
innovation ecosystem in South Africa and I had
interacted with Leonard Brody who visited South
Africa in support of work with the Canadian High
Commission. Leonard had co-authored the book
Innovation Nation: Canadian Leadership from Java to
Jurassic Park, and in it they did a rather good job of
distilling key components needed for a functioning
innovation ecosystem, namely: serial entrepreneurs;
financiers; coaches; academic bridges; and
infrastructure builders.
While I won’t elaborate on those five components here,
I used them as building blocks and mapped out specific
components that would need to be built if Cirrus was to
be successful. Those components included:
cooperation programs with academia and industry;
state-of-art computing infrastructure; open learning
programs; a foundry and foundry fund. So, when I refer
to Cirrus, please keep all these components in mind, as
it is not just about infrastructure, nor just a foundry, but
crucially it is all these components brought together.
Cirrus Update — Synapse Magazine Interview, May 2020
This was detailed in a proposal document and in
early 2018 presented to Wits. Following meetings
with stakeholders from across the university,
Professor Dean Brady, Head of the School of
Chemistry and Director of the Molecular Science
Institute, with the support of the Deputy Vice
Chancellor, Professor Zeblon Vilakazi, took the lead
on pushing Cirrus forward within Wits.
In September 2019 we were able to unveil some of
what we were working on publicly for the first time
at AI Expo Africa.
The work that has taken place since the unveiling
has been substantial. I think some folks were
thinking that following the event it would be a case
of flicking a switch and bam everything is up and
running. It is when you peek under the hood that you
fully appreciate why this is the first and largest
undertaking of its kind in the continent’s history.
“…first and largest undertaking
of its kind in the continent’s
history.”
3
To give you an idea, some of stuff that we have been
working on over the last few months includes the
scoping of infrastructure requirements which
incorporates input from several of the world’s leading
providers. For example, in November 2019 we had
members of the NVIDIA High Performance Computing
(HPC) team visit Wits, where joint presentations were
held. The session was useful because NVIDIA provided
some insight into what they were doing on the research
front with universities in other parts of the world.
If we delve a little deeper into some of that work like
that on the HPC front, one of our KPI’s is for an AI
focused hardware installation that will rank inside the
top 50 of the TOP500 list. This would make the
installation the most powerful computer system in
Africa by a large margin. In support of this we have
been working on energy generation and storage options,
cooling infrastructure and reviewing satellite imagery
to find suitable sites to locate infrastructure.
On the energy generation front Eskom (South Africa’s
state power utility) is neither a reliable nor a clean
source of supply and so our plans include at least 3
MW’s of solar generation capacity. Part of the 3 MW
capacity will feed the HPC infrastructure during the day
and the remainder will be fed into storage. On the
storage front we have been exploring a number of
options including, lithium ion batteries, flow batteries,
liquid metal batteries, compressed air storage and
thermal storage. For all but one of the energy storage
providers this would be a first deployment for them in
Africa.
Cirrus Update — Synapse Magazine Interview, May 2020 4

On the cooling front our HPC facility will need to be

one of the most efficient in the world – we lack the
In addition to the work on HPC and related
climate and resources for it to be anything less. To
infrastructure we are working on several other fronts
achieve this, we have been utilising resources from
including a very exciting undertaking called FABRIC.
facilities like the Lawrence Berkeley National
FABRIC is the National Science Foundation funded
Laboratory who are involved in the development
midscale testbed for the development of the next
and utilisation of HPC cooling infrastructure.
generation internet architecture. In the simplest of
Factors impacting cooling options are not just
terms, the testbed will enable researchers from around
climactic but also hardware dependent. While some
the world to collaborate on experiments for the
of the AI focused hardware available and in
development of future internet technologies. In a first
development supports liquid cooling at the chip
for Africa, the intention is that Cirrus will host a “hank
level and cold plates, there are others that do not. So,
node”, thus enabling researchers in Africa to conduct
at this stage it looks like we will be going with rear
their own experiments on the testbed. FABRIC is
door heat exchanges as that will give us the most
relevant and important to Cirrus for several reasons
optionality to support various hardware providers.
including: the role of AI in future internet technologies;
In terms of cooling to the rear door heat exchanges
and the development and testing of connectivity to
we are looking at several options including indirect
research centres located across the world.
air-liquid-air cooling units. All the options we are
looking at though would be a first for Africa and the
provider(s) as in the case of the energy storage
platform will have an opportunity to use the
deployment as a reference installation in the African
market and to undertake research and development
with universities in the region.
Cirrus Update — Synapse Magazine Interview, May 2020
Closing The Gap
Mpala: What is the state of AI research on the
continent and how do we compare to other parts
of the world?
Barrett: This depends on what
included/excluded in the definition of “state” and
how you control for various factors to enable the
proverbial apples to apples comparison between
countries. At the end of 2017 when we were
compiling the proposal for Wits, we looked at
several measures. On the academic front the
measures included the number of published papers,
the number of academic programs on offer, and
technology commercialised from university
technology transfer offices. Those are pretty much
the run-of-the-mill measures but you need more to
get a true picture of the ecosystem, so we looked at
venture capital activity and importantly activity in
the ”hard tech” (also called “deep tech”) space to get
an understanding of AI application in the hard
sciences, which is where a lot of the university
investment in infrastructure and research goes.
While Africa’s performance across the measures in
general was poor it was the performance on AI
application in the hard tech space where the wheels
really came off. To us this signalled a real
opportunity - an opportunity to do something about
it. This measure and a graphic on TensorFlow usage
resonated the most in our engagements with various
stakeholders.
5
is
“Whatever the delta between
Africa and other parts of the
world with Cirrus it will be
greatly reduced.”
In Africa there has been little collective understanding
that technology is crucial to building prosperity and
most investment has targeted sectors such as natural
resources. This left Africa orphaned during the Internet
Revolution but fortunately we are now seeing a change
in the thinking. However, there is still way too much
talk taking place with every man and his dog trying to
clamber onto the AI come Fourth Industrial Revolution
bandwagon. This is where Cirrus is different, we are
building it. In a recent meeting with an international
philanthropy that was undertaking research into the
state of play in Africa, their response to us was that they
found what we were doing to be refreshing in terms of
demonstrating all the details spanning intellectual
property to infrastructure.
Whatever the delta between Africa and other parts of
the world with Cirrus it will be greatly reduced.
Cirrus Update — Synapse Magazine Interview, May 2020
Keeping African R&D
Relevant
Mpala: How important are initiatives like
Cirrus if Africa is to get ahead when it comes to
AI research and the application of the tech on the
continent?
Barrett: Critical, and at this stage the focus is not battery research and that it is also staffed by the
just about trying to get head, but rather about
keeping a lot of the research and development across
various scientific domains that is being conducted
on the continent relevant. The NVIDIA presentation
I referenced earlier highlighted this and it covered
the breadth and depth of work across a variety of
scientific domains with universities from around the
world. That machine learning is now an instrumental
part of much scientific work was recently covered in
a paper by Eric Schmidt and Maithra Raghu.
6
Let’s take an example of a university in South Africa
setting up a new battery research centre. Let’s say the
centre contains the necessary infrastructure to conduct
foremost researchers on the continent, it will also need
the Cirrus capabilities on the machine learning side.
You put together the capabilities of the respective
operations and the result is the ability to conduct cutting
edge battery research with machine learning. When this
is combined with programs in Cirrus that support
Intellectual Property options, it becomes attractive to
companies around the world driving cutting edge
research in battery technology. In addition, with the
Cirrus FOUNDRY there is then the necessary structures
to support commercialisation options as well as the
necessary pre-seed and seed stage funding to support a
hard tech battery start-up through the Cirrus
FOUNDRY Fund. This is the ecosystem that I was
talking about in action.
Cirrus Update — Synapse Magazine Interview, May 2020 7

Over the years I have heard some people say that

South Africa is already doing this and that there are
While we are on the topic of the cloud, as for future
already entities in place to support this. My response
cloud instances being established on the continent,
is that the evidence indicates otherwise. Let’s look
clean and sustainable energy options need to be
at just two of the pieces needed that relate to the
addressed in addition to connectivity.
aforementioned example.

On the commercialisation front, if the research results

On the simulation front, the simulation work that is
in some breakthrough and commercialisation is desired
now performed in materials science using machine
the intellectual property rights emanating from Publicly
learning requires considerable computing resources.
Financed Research (if the research was conducted at a
These resources do not exist at this very moment in
publicly funded university in South Africa) means that
Africa. At the time of our meeting with NVIDIA in
the team conducting the research can’t just throw
2019 there was not a single NVIDIA DGX on the
together a startup based on the IP and issue equity in
continent. Compare that to research labs in the UK
exchange for funding. Note that Cirrus as a privately
and North America for example where researchers
funded entity is not encumbered by the strictures
are running simulations on platforms that have HPC
imposed by the Act and has the flexibility to support
racks full of these units. As for other AI focused
various commercialisation routes whether it be the
hardware vendors, we are interacting with them as
researchers wishing to pursue their innovation in a
well, and the story is the same.
startup or an industry partner closing off some of the
Some folks say that “you can just use the cloud”. intellectual property in order to support further
Well firstly at present there are no cloud instances investment for development.
on the continent that are running this hardware. This
Mpala: What is WITS' role in the initiative?
matters because in many cases you are dealing with
huge datasets and you have to get the data to the
Barrett: Wits has been working to be the host
cloud instance for processing. (This is one of the
university for Cirrus. The host university as the name
experimental topics in FABRIC). Secondly, I
implies will host the Cirrus operation and all the
challenge anyone to see just how long their cloud
infrastructure. The host university also leads the Cirrus
credits last, and their credit card for that matter,
Consortium. The Cirrus Consortium provides academic
when they fire up and run an instance with the sort
and research entities throughout Africa and abroad with
of computing power we are talking about.
access to Cirrus infrastructure and resources.
Cirrus Update — Synapse Magazine Interview, May 2020 8

Private Sector Involvement

Mpala: Which companies or organisations (as

well as universities other than Wits) are part of
the initiative?
Barrett: In terms of the Cirrus Consortium, the handle the private sector engagement. Details of the
host university will be issuing the invitations to
academic and research entities for their
participation. The list covers entities across Africa
and the world, so it is very inclusive.
In terms of private sector involvement, we are
working on broad based participation of the world’s
leading multinationals. To support this, we have
been working on structures through which they can
hold an equity position in Cirrus without forcing
them to first establish local operations - some of
these firms do not have a legal entity registered on
the continent. The equity position in Cirrus is very
important as the discussion does not revolve around
just contributing some funding, but rather active
involvement. This active involvement includes
participation of the organisations’ respective
research operation and corporate venture capital
(CVC) operation. To be clear, the CVC arms and the
research operations of many of the world’s most
successful organisations are MIA in Africa – and if
we are going to get breakthroughs in research and
seek returns to those research efforts in Africa, we
must change that. In Cirrus lingo we call these firms
Strategic Founding Partners (SFP’s) and we are
working with a global investment banking team to
investment banking team that will be leading this
engagement will be forthcoming in the next few
months.
Mpala: How is Cirrus AI funded and how does it
make money?
Barrett: Cirrus is initially funded by the SFP’s and
ongoing revenue is supported through a variety of
programs including the Co-development program and
the Partner and Affiliate programs.
Once Cirrus is fully operational on an annual basis the
funding requirement is not at all strenuous.
On the Cirrus FOUNDRY side there are several options
including: successful exits of start-up businesses:
running the product as a revenue generating project; and
selling the code/IP without spinning it out.
Cirrus Update — Synapse Magazine Interview, May 2020 9

Mpala: What has been the general sentiment

from the corporate world?
On the foundry front there are already several

Barrett: Since the launch at AI Expo Africa several promising startup opportunities in the pipeline for
private sector organisations have expressed interest submission to the Cirrus FOUNDRY and we have

in participating in Cirrus. In all instances we have international partners that are eager for us to make

asked them to please sit tight while we conclude the submissions into their streams as well. With growing

process of setting everything up – and there is a lot opportunities, it is now time to get things moving so that

to setup! Now that we are nearing the end of that we can pull the trigger.

process the investment banking team will be leading

Mpala: Can you tell us more about Cirrus Foundry
the engagement starting in the coming months.
Cape Town, had this been launched yet and (if it

Mpala: Can you give us a run-down of some of has) how does it work and what support is it
the projects the initiative has been involved in providing to startups/entrepreneurs?

since its launch?

Barrett: We have an agreement with the Cortex Group

Barrett: Given the origins of Cirrus, machine who are looking to establish a version of the Cirrus
learning in materials science has been an area of FOUNDRY in Cape Town called Cirrus FOUNDRY

interest. However, Cirrus is being established to Cape. At this stage the plan is to get Cirrus FOUNDRY

serve all domains where machine learning has Cape going once the Cirrus FOUNDRY operation in

applicability, so there is no single domain that we JHB is up and running.

are focused on. Rather Cirrus is focused on AI

The Cirrus FOUNDRY is equipped with everything
research and its application, and on the applied side
needed to bridge what is called the “Valley of Death”,
Cirrus will team up with researchers (participating
and that is overcoming the challenge of turning a start-
through the Cirrus Consortium) from different
up idea or scientific research into large-scale
domains to support the application of machine
commercial application. The business of the Cirrus
learning in their work.
FOUNDRY is building other businesses. It is
characterised by: ideation generally carried out by the
in-house team; the use of in-house staff in product
creation; building multiple products centred around AI;
with the objective of being standalone businesses;
retaining some ownership stake and has a capital fund.
Cirrus Update — Synapse Magazine Interview, May 2020 10

For these reasons it is not an incubator or accelerator

and referred to as a foundry.
Mpala: How big will the Cirrus Fund be and how
Mpala: How many startups/entrepreneurs is will it work? Where will the capital come from and
Cirrus Foundry working with and what are some how big will the investments it makes be?
of the exciting solutions or innovations they've
Barrett: The target capitalization of the fund is 35
come up with?
million US dollars. Part of that will be taken out of the
Barrett: We have several startup opportunities in monies raised in establishing Cirrus and the remainder
the pipeline, these and others will be more fully will be raised following. The Cirrus FOUNDRY fund
developed once the Cirrus FOUNDRY becomes is a pre-seed and early stage fund. For most
operational. Many of the opportunities the Cirrus investments, capital will be allocated at the pre-seed
FOUNDRY will pursue will be rather different from stage, with investments of up to 3 750 000 South
that which typifies most activity in the region - as African Rand. The FOUNDRY Fund will also follow a
the Cirrus FOUNDRY is equipped to pursue lead investor in seed rounds, with investments of up to
endeavours in the hard tech space. 7 500 000 South African Rand.
Cirrus Update — Synapse Magazine Interview, May 2020
Infrastructure, Connectivity
Among Main Challenges
Mpala: What are some of Cirrus AI's main
challenges?
Barrett: At present much of the infrastructure
originates from overseas firms, many of the firms
that supply the infrastructure have no presence and
thus no support in Africa. While this is a challenge
it also presents an opportunity where these firms can
use their work with Cirrus as a steppingstone into
the African market.
Connectivity is a headache and improvements need
to be made both in terms of intracontinental
connectivity and intercontinental connectivity. At
present Africa has too few options available – a bit
like an island with only a few roads carrying all the
traffic. The work on FABRIC and with SFP’s will
include an effort to establish more options on this
front.
11
There is a clear need for a data management platform to
support machine learning efforts across research
domains. Further this is linked to the need to connect
research instrumentation throughout the continent as
well as the establishment of a data commons that
supports FAIR principles. While the implementation of
a data management platform, connecting research
instruments and the establishment of a data commons
are not primary objectives for Cirrus, we are well
positioned to tackle these important issues and we have
several ideas in the pipeline which we intend to explore.
I have already touched on the need for the research and
CVC operations of multinational firms to participate in
Africa. Amongst other things this participation enables
later stage funding for technologies developed on the
continent and access to critical markets, which is
particularly relevant in the hard tech space. Keep in
mind that the GDP of South Africa is roughly
equivalent to that of the state of Tennessee.
Cirrus working with SFP’s and entities like Berkeley
SkyDeck offer promising opportunities to get hard tech
opportunities from Africa into those markets.
Cirrus Update — Synapse Magazine Interview, May 2020 12

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