As the scale of the open internet continues to grow, the programmatic industry is reaching the limits of infrastructure models built more than a decade ago.
Rising compute costs, constrained access to inventory, and increasing latency have made it harder for buyers to optimize effectively across the full breadth of the open internet.
At our latest Innovators Unscripted Live at POSSIBLE, Shane Shevlin, co-founder and CEO of Bedrock Platform, joined Andrew Casale, president and CEO of Index Exchange, to discuss how Index Cloud and containerized infrastructure fundamentally reshape programmatic performance by bringing decisioning closer to the impression.
Fresh off the announcement of Bedrock’s debut as the first containerized DSP running inside an exchange, the conversation explored what happens when infrastructure is no longer the bottleneck and why that shift creates a more performant, competitive future for the open internet.
Programmatic’s current model is reaching its limits
At the time of its inception, programmatic infrastructure was a technical breakthrough. Running auctions across platforms in a matter of milliseconds transformed digital advertising and enabled the real-time bidding ecosystem we know today.
But the internet has evolved dramatically since those early days.
“The internet is big and keeps getting bigger,” Andrew said. “App is in massive growth still. Streaming is exploding.”
The costs associated with processing that growing volume of inventory have increased substantially. DSPs have had to rely on queries-per-second (QPS) caps to manage compute costs, which limits how much inventory buyers see.
That creates a structural disadvantage for the open internet—particularly compared to the large walled gardens that can optimize at enormous scale.
“It all comes at the expense of performance,” Andrew said. “It all harms outcomes, and it all leads to the internet kind of growing into a ceiling.”
For Bedrock, the challenge was equally clear. Traditional infrastructure forces bidders to spend valuable milliseconds navigating network hops and processing overhead before they can even evaluate an impression.
“If you collapse the distance between our decision layer, which is what we need to perform well, and the impression, the only game in town becomes decisioning…We just focus on how we make the best decision for the best performance.”
Shane Shevlin, Co-Founder and CEO
Bedrock Platform
Index Cloud changes the equation
That’s the opportunity Index Cloud, our neutral compute environment designed to bring intelligence closer to the transaction, unlocks.
By deploying Bedrock’s bidder as a containerized DSP directly within Index Cloud, decisioning happens right at the edge of the impression. The result is lower latency, reduced compute overhead, and dramatically improved efficiency.
Importantly, containerization does not change how DSPs operate or compromise their independence. That means DSPs can continue running their proprietary models, optimization strategies, and bidding logic exactly as they do today, while benefiting from the efficiency gains of proximity to the transaction.
“The image that we have deployed inside Index’s data center is cryptographically signed. The code of our application is not visible to Index, so we retain full independence of how we actually decision on an ad.”
Shane Shevlin, Co-Founder and CEO
Bedrock Platform
The impact is already becoming visible.
“The most exciting and realistic win that we’re already seeing with the Bedrock bidder is that QPS caps open up dramatically,” Andrew said.
As compute constraints ease, more supply becomes addressable to buyers. Campaigns targeting scarce audiences can scale more effectively across the open internet instead of relying heavily on walled gardens to achieve reach.
“This will create a more competitive internet, an internet where bidders have more ubiquitous access to supply, buys scale better, and buyers start saying the internet is bigger than they thought and it performs better than they thought.”
Andrew Casale, President and CEO
Index Exchange
Competing on intelligence instead of infrastructure
One of the most significant implications of Index Cloud is that it shifts where DSPs compete.
Historically, infrastructure scale itself created a major competitive advantage. Large DSPs with enough infrastructure investment could process more of the internet than smaller competitors. Containerized DSPs fundamentally shift that dynamic by dramatically reducing infrastructure costs.
“No longer do we need to compete on scale,” Shane said. “DSPs need to compete with us on the data and the approach and the decisioning rather than scale.”
That creates a more level playing field and opens the door for more innovation across the ecosystem.
It also creates additional opportunities for sell-side decisioning, where richer supply-side signals and trusted data can play a larger role in optimization.
“What is exciting for me in this kind of step change in how we actually buy is the accessibility of data on the supply side…Some data is great for good performance, more data is better, and that extra data will come from trusted publishers. It will mean better quality and it will mean better performance.”
Shane Shevlin, Co-Founder and CEO
Bedrock Platform
As infrastructure bottlenecks diminish, DSPs can spend less time managing compute limitations and more time improving the quality of their decisioning.
Unlocking larger models and better performance
The benefits extend beyond operational efficiency. Reducing latency also creates more time for models to evaluate impressions and make decisions.
Today’s optimization models often operate under extremely tight time constraints because bidders themselves consume so much of the available transaction window. Reducing latency creates more room within the auction for models to operate.
That additional time opens the door for richer models with more features and more sophisticated optimization capabilities, bringing the open internet closer to the kind of performance and outcomes historically associated with walled gardens.
“If we give these models 50 milliseconds or 100 milliseconds, I think we’re going to be able to drive a level of performance on the open internet that no one’s ever seen before. That’s never been possible and is soon going to be, and that’s what motivates me to bring the fight to the walled gardens.”
Andrew Casale, President and CEO
Index Exchange
A new infrastructure model for the open internet
The implications extend beyond today’s workflows. Both Andrew and Shane emphasized that containerized infrastructure could become foundational to the future of programmatic advertising.
“Short of maybe less than five bidders, every bidder in five years will be containerized because there will be no prizes for paying more of your OpEx to the public cloud.”
Andrew Casale, President and CEO
Index Exchange
For environments like streaming TV and live events—which bring challenges like high concurrency and unpredictable ad slots—the benefits could be even more significant and valuable for DSPs.
“If you’re in the data center where the decision is finally made to run the ad slot, and you’ve got a ton of opportunity and demand that you need to present at that moment, then we’re really well positioned to fill that gap,” Shane said.
Ultimately, bringing models, data, and logic directly into the exchange creates an opportunity to reshape how the open internet delivers value.
Removing infrastructure barriers and creating more efficient access to supply means the ecosystem can focus on driving more performant outcomes at scale.
Learn more about Index Cloud and how bringing intelligence closer to the impression helps unlock stronger performance across the open internet.
