NVIDIA unveils AI Data Platform with leading storage firms

A new AI infrastructure solution has been unveiled by NVIDIA and major storage industry leaders designed to address the challenges of AI inference workloads in enterprise environments.

NVIDIA has introduced the NVIDIA AI Data Platform, a reference design that storage providers are utilising to build AI-based enterprise storage platforms. These platforms feature AI query agents which leverage NVIDIA's suite of accelerated computing, networking, and software capabilities.

The platform integrates NVIDIA AI Enterprise software, including NVIDIA NIM microservices for the Llama Nemotron models, with reasoning features and the NVIDIA AI-Q Blueprint. This enables businesses to generate insights from data in near real time.

The infrastructure supporting these capabilities is optimised using NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs, BlueField DPUs, Spectrum-X networking, and the Dynamo open-source inference library.

Several renowned data platform and storage providers are collaborating with NVIDIA to create these customisable AI data platforms.

Among these are companies such as DDN, Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Hitachi Vantara, IBM, NetApp, Nutanix, Pure Storage, VAST Data, and WEKA.

Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, commented, "Data is the raw material powering industries in the age of AI.

With the world's storage leaders, we're building a new class of enterprise infrastructure that companies need to deploy and scale agentic AI across hybrid data centres."

The AI Data Platform aims to enhance AI reasoning workloads by providing an accelerated engine via NVIDIA's hardware and software solutions. BlueField DPUs, in particular, deliver significantly higher performance compared to CPU-based storage and offer enhancements in power efficiency.

Spectrum-X further aids in accelerating AI storage traffic with advanced routing and congestion control techniques, while AI-Q Blueprint employs NVIDIA NeMo Retriever microservices to expedite data extraction and retrieval processes.

The development of these query agents allows the platforms to manage various data types sourced from multiple origins, enabling more context-aware responses and improving access to large-scale data collections.

Specific initiatives from leading storage providers include DDN integrating AI Data Platform features into its Infinia AI platform and Dell developing AI data platforms for its PowerScale and Project Lightning offerings. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is incorporating these features into its Private Cloud for AI, Data Fabric, Alletra Storage MP, and GreenLake for File Storage.

Other collaborations involve Hitachi Vantara enhancing its IQ ecosystem, IBM leveraging the AI Data Platform with its Fusion and Storage Scale technology, and NetApp advancing their AIPod solution.

Additionally, Pure Storage, VAST Data, and WEKA are adapting their offerings to comply with the platform.

These NVIDIA-Certified Storage partners intend to begin offering solutions built with the NVIDIA AI Data Platform.