Substrate

About Substrate

We believe compute should be composable

The cloud sold us on flexibility but delivered rigidity. Fixed instance types force teams to over-provision, under-utilize, and pay for resources they don't need. We started Substrate to change that.

Our mission

Substrate exists to make GPU compute as composable as software. Instead of choosing from a menu of pre-built machines, you specify exactly what your workload needs — cores, VRAM, memory, storage — and we assemble it in seconds. No waste, no guessing, no compromise.

We believe the next generation of AI infrastructure shouldn't inherit the limitations of the last one. Every research lab training a model, every startup shipping an inference API, and every rendering studio processing frames should be able to allocate compute as precisely as they write code.

Why we built inside a mountain

When we started Substrate, we knew the data center would define everything — our sustainability story, our security posture, and our cost structure. We chose Lefdal Mine Datacenter in Måløy, Norway: a former NATO mining facility carved into solid rock, powered by 100% renewable hydroelectric energy, and cooled by fjord water from the Norwegian Sea.

The result is a PUE below 1.15, physical security that no above-ground facility can replicate, and a carbon footprint that lets our customers run large-scale GPU workloads without the environmental trade-off. Lefdal isn't just our data center — it's our thesis: infrastructure should be efficient by design, not by offset.

The team

A small team of infrastructure engineers and product builders based in Norway.

EL

Erik Lindqvist

CEO & Co-founder

MS

Maren Solberg

CTO & Co-founder

JD

Jonas Dahl

Head of Infrastructure

AN

Astrid Nygaard

Head of Product

What we stand for

Transparency

No hidden fees, no opaque pricing, no surprise bills. Every metric, cost, and configuration is visible in real time. We publish our uptime, our pricing model, and our compliance reports.

Efficiency

Every watt, every core, every byte matters. We chose Lefdal Mine for its natural cooling and renewable power. We built composable allocation so you never pay for idle resources.

Security

Infrastructure shouldn't be the weak link. SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA compliance, zero data logging, AES-256 encryption, and physical security inside a mountain. Security is architecture, not an afterthought.

Want to work with us?

We're always looking for exceptional people who care about infrastructure.