The first language we implemented was Java/Scala, largely because of the excellent libraries like Mahout and Weka easily available in Maven Central. But even though the code is there in maven, it is still not trivial to deploy those algorithms as a service. We are trying to make that easier, while at the same time supporting the developers of those libraries in the process.
Being able to run the code locally is in the plans. For the most part, the algorithms in our system are already simply maven packages, or ruby gems, npm packages, etc. Being able to distribute them in binary form is definitely possible. We're still figuring things out right now, but our focus is always on doing right by the algorithm development community.
The 9th DIMACS Implementation Challenge from 8 years ago (see http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/challenge9/ ) served as a way to gather the best algorithms for the shortest path problem. I don't see how this project can be significantly better, or even close to, a traditional effort like that.
It doesn't have to be better at producing good algorithms. It just has to be better at making those algorithms implementations easy to use.
But I still don't think the business model is viable.
The Boost Graph Library includes three different shortest path implementations, and I have that already downloaded. That library likely fits my needs.
In the DIMACS challenge papers at http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/challenge9/papers.shtml you'll see "Single-Source Shortest Paths with the Parallel Boost Graph Library".
Indeed, the Parallel Boost Graph Library library is easily available, and contains two parallel shortest-path implementations.
The flip question is, what if it doesn't fit my needs? Well, then the question is "what do I need"?
The other DIMACS challenges include 1) pre-computation, which is useful for road-based graphs, 2) supercomputer parallelism to search billions of nodes, 3) out-of-core graph searches, for when you don't have enough RAM, and 4) k-shortest path search.
It's very unlikely that this proposed algorithm service provider will implement these alternate algorithms.
Maybe we need more crowdfunding of open source and independent researchers that are independent of academia. I really think open source hardware is crying out for a project and a community to revolutionize how a community can participated with the mostly closed EDA / silicon stack, because frankly, I don't trust anything I can't get the source code to.
This type of system will encourage these folks to release their source code in a form compatible with your API, and 3rd parties who want to leverage their work will need to either cut-and-paste it to incorporate it into their own system (a nightmare), or access it through a slow network API, likely paying for it along the way. Libraries have solved the problem of code re-use of algorithms for the last several decades. You're basically proposing that LAPACK and BLAS and Mahout and all these great algorithmic libraries would have been best served up without any centralized coordination or binary distribution, but with each individual algorithm behind a separate API with each author publishing each one individually. I don't see how if the goal is really to enable wider distribution of good algorithmic work that you can't see that an heterogenous API-centric approach to this problem (while one that would certainly make you a pile of cash if it catches on) wouldn't really be a great step forward for the industry compared to the centralized open source library model we have now. Good algorithmic work is hard, and the model we have now results in battle hardened, robust, agreed-upon implementations of well understood algorithms.
If you really want to make me a believer, all algorithms that your API supports that have public source code should also be integrated and built into a binary library that a user can download instead. At the very least, the path for a contributor to take what they have written and additionally publish it as a appropriate binary package themselves should be minimal. For example, if I implement something in Ruby that uses your service, I should be able to push it as a un-coupled, reusable gem in a straightforward manner.