Architecture Teardown: How Replicate and Modal Host AI Models Using Kubernetes 1.34 Replicate and Modal have emerged as two of the most popular platforms for hosting and serving AI models, each catering to slightly different developer workflows. While Replicate focuses on simplified model deployment via its Cog containerization tool, Modal offers a code-first serverless platform for AI workloads. Both platforms rely heavily on Kubernetes 1.34 as their underlying orchestration layer, leveraging its cutting-edge features for GPU management, pod scheduling, and scalable inference. This teardown breaks down how each platform architects its hosting stack on K8s 1.34, highlighting shared patterns and key differentiators. Replicate's K8s 1.34 Architecture Replicate’s core workflow revolves around Cog, a tool that packages AI models into standardized Docker containers with pinned dependencies and model weights.…