Ben Asaf (Clika): 10 Key Things You Must Know

Overview

Ben Asaf is a prominent figure in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning operations (MLOps), best known as the co-founder and CTO of CLIKA, a startup specializing in AI model compression and deployment. CLIKA, founded in 2021, addresses critical challenges in scaling AI technologies by making AI models smaller, faster, and more cost-efficient for production environments. Based in Seoul, South Korea, Ben Asaf combines his deep technical expertise with entrepreneurial drive, contributing significantly to the AI ecosystem. This article explores ten essential insights about Ben Asaf, his career, and the innovative work he is doing at CLIKA that aims to revolutionize AI deployment.

1. Early Career and Academic Background

Ben Asaf holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Before founding CLIKA, he built extensive experience as a senior programmer at The Parallel Computation Lab at this university and as an algorithms developer at Mobileye, an Israeli company known for its autonomous driving technology, which Intel acquired in 2017. His academic and professional background in accelerating AI training and optimizing computational workflows laid a strong foundation for his future work in AI model compression.

2. Founding CLIKA and Its Vision

In 2021, Ben Asaf teamed up with Nayul Lina Kim to co-found CLIKA. They envisioned a future where AI adoption could be seamless due to more efficient model deployment. CLIKA was created to solve a pressing problem: the high resource cost and complexity of scaling AI models in production, particularly on edge devices and embedded systems. The company's mission focuses on making AI lightweight, faster, and more affordable to deploy.

3. CLIKA’s Core Technology: AI Model Compression

A cornerstone of Ben Asaf’s work is CLIKA’s AI compression platform. CLIKA employs advanced AI-driven compression techniques, outperforming traditional rule-based methods. Their technology can significantly reduce model size—sometimes by up to 90%—without sacrificing performance. This enables models to be deployed efficiently on a variety of hardware, including servers, cloud infrastructure, edge devices, and embedded systems, thus extending AI capabilities to a broader array of applications.

4. The Problem of AI Deployment Costs

Ben Asaf observed that while much of the AI industry focuses on training large, high-performance models, the real bottleneck often lies in inference—the stage where models are put into production and actually perform tasks. This results in high operational costs because larger models require more compute power. CLIKA’s technology aims to reduce these inferencing costs by optimizing model size and execution efficiency, making AI deployment more scalable and cost-effective.

5. Innovative Approach to Model Editing and Visualization

Beyond compression, CLIKA under Ben Asaf’s leadership developed VEGA, an AI model visualization and editing tool described as “Figma for AI models.” This platform helps engineers visualize, modify, and merge ONNX AI models on the fly, streamlining the workflow and reducing the need for tedious manual editing in code. VEGA empowers AI practitioners to experiment with and optimize their models in an interactive environment.

6. CLIKA’s Market Position and Competition

CLIKA competes with several AI model optimization startups like Deci, OctoML, and CoCoPie. However, Ben Asaf asserts that CLIKA holds a technological edge thanks to its AI-driven compression engine capable of understanding diverse AI model architectures and applying tailored compression strategies. CLIKA focuses strongly on vision AI models, claiming to outperform solutions developed by major players such as Meta and Nvidia.

7. Fundraising and Growth

CLIKA has successfully raised approximately $1.1 million in a pre-seed funding round, with backing from prominent investors such as Kimgisa Labs, Dodam Ventures, D-Camp, Accenture Ventures, IQT, Milemark Capital, and Golden Gate Ventures. This funding supports CLIKA’s goals to accelerate development and commercialize their AI compression and deployment platform globally, with offices in Seoul and San Jose, California.

8. Contributions to AI Scalability and Tiny AI Movement

Ben Asaf’s work at CLIKA contributes to the growing trend of “tiny AI,” which aims to make AI models smaller and more efficient to operate on less powerful hardware. This is crucial as demand grows for AI embedded in everyday devices like smartphones, IoT gadgets, and edge computing hardware. CLIKA’s compression technology enables these devices to run AI models locally, reducing latency and dependence on cloud infrastructure.

9. Impact on Network and Hardware Resource Strain

As AI models grow larger, the strain on computational resources and networks increases significantly, causing potential bottlenecks and hardware shortages. Ben Asaf’s focus on reducing model sizes can alleviate pressure on networks, data centers, and GPU availability, addressing critical supply chain issues highlighted by industry leaders like Microsoft and Nvidia. This makes CLIKA’s solutions timely and strategically important for the AI industry’s future sustainability.

10. Vision for the Future of AI Deployment

Ben Asaf envisions a world where deploying AI models is radically simple, fast, and accessible. His passion for automating model compression and deployment aims to democratize AI usage across industries and geographies. By focusing on scalable and lightweight AI, Ben and CLIKA aspire to embed intelligence “in every device, everywhere,” enabling smarter, more responsive technology that can function efficiently across diverse environments and hardware.

Conclusion

Ben Asaf, through his leadership at CLIKA and his deep expertise in AI engineering, is driving innovative solutions that address some of the most pressing challenges in AI deployment today. From reducing model sizes and costs to simplifying AI workflows with tools like VEGA, his work is helping to make AI more accessible and sustainable. As AI continues to permeate everyday technology, figures like Ben Asaf play a critical role in shaping how intelligent systems evolve and integrate into our lives. The future of AI could indeed be smaller, faster, and smarter thanks to pioneers like him—raising compelling questions about where AI’s next frontiers may lie.