ModelCat partners with Alif to deliver rapid ML model onboarding

ModelCat AI, a US-based creator of a fully autonomous AI model builder, has announced a partnership with Alif Semiconductor to introduce a turnkey solution that allows developers to quickly build, optimize and deploy AI models onto Alif’s Ensemble family of microcontrollers (MCUs).  

This gives Alif customers access to ModelCat’s single step model build process, to generate custom AI models fully optimized for Alif’s Ensemble processors, according to a media release.

Bringing the “Cursor Experience” to Edge AI ModelCat is bringing the agentic, autonomous coding experience popularized by tools like Cursor, Lovable, and Claude Code to the complex world of model development for EdgeAI. Rather than manually tuning weights or wrestling with compilers, developers can now rely on ModelCat to architect and optimize custom models for Alif’s unique hardware architecture including multiple neural processing units (NPUs), the media release said.

“We are seeing a massive bottleneck where hardware capabilities are outpacing the software tools required to use them,” said Evan Petridis, CEO of ModelCat AI. “Our goal was to give Alif a turnkey solution they could hand to their customers immediately. ModelCat isn’t just another development tool; we are an autonomous builder that handles the heavy lifting, allowing chip manufacturers like Alif to focus on selling silicon rather than debugging customer AI models.”

“Working with the ModelCat team has been a breath of fresh air. They were incredibly supportive and integrated our chip in record time,” said Mark Rootz, Vice President of Marketing at Alif Semiconductor. “Finally, we have a solution that just works. We can now offer our customers a seamless, automated path from concept to deployment. We expect this to be a major catalyst in helping us close more deals and getting our chips into products faster.”