VAST Data#14

Ben Lang@benln

Startups that have done tender offers for employees recently: • Decagon • Stripe • Clay • Plaid • Vast Data • Ripple

Shay Boloor@StockSavvyShay

$SMCI and VAST Data launched a joint enterprise AI platform with $NVDA to simplify and accelerate "AI factory" deployments. Jensen’s been saying the unit of sale is shifting from GPUs to racks to data centers https://t.co/8d4q41w83v

Beth Kindig@Beth_Kindig

Nvidia-backed startup Vast Data has signed a $1.17 billion agreement with CoreWeave $CRWV, extending an existing partnership with Vast serving as the primary data foundation for CoreWeave’s AI cloud infrastructure. $NVDA

Jeff Denworth@JeffDenworth

In the blink of an eye, AI storage explodes in capacity by 12,300% (see math below). This week, NVIDIA introduced a massive unlock to GPU efficiency: a new specialized AI storage architecture that extends context/tokens that are processed in HBM - and can now spill context down into shared NVMe storage. By saving context in a KV Cache, inference systems avoid the cost of context recomputing (for large context inference), lowering time-to-first-token by 20x or more. What people don't realize is that this is an altogether new data generator - and not only does the market need a new approach to storage speed and efficiency, but many (regulated) AI labs will still need enterprise data management capability which cannot be sacrificed for raw speed. NVIDIA calls this Inference Context Memory Storage (ICMS) Platform. We've been working with them for weeks now to pioneer a new way to configure VAST systems that provides ultimate efficiency, by embedding the core logic of VAST systems directly into a GPU machines BlueField DPU. **The 12x is no joke. I did the math today ** - A standard VAST system, minimally configured for a NCP (NVIDIA Cloud Partner), has roughly 1.3TB of data per every GPU in a GB200-class cluster. - When we add additional infrastructure for context memory extension, GPUs will require an additional 16TB as we step into the Vera Rubin era. 12.3x. Why @VAST_Data , you might ask? 1. our parallel DASE architecture allows us to embed VAST servers directly into each BlueField server. This not only reduces infrastructure requirements vs. conventional configurations where separate x86 servers were shared by GPU clients, it also changes the fundamental client:server paradigm... where for the first time every GPU client machine now has their own dedicated server. VAST's parallel Disaggregated, Shared-Everything architecture makes it possible to embed servers in each client without introducing cross-talk across VAST servers as would be the case for any other storage technology. Each server then connects directly to all of the cluster's SSDs, requiring a single zero-copy hop to get to all of the shared context- so any machine can retrieve context in real-time. The efficiency and scale of this architecture is unprecedented. 2. While we can get great performance by stripping down data services that run In BlueField, our embarrassingly-parallel architecture allows us to hang additional servers off the same fabric to provide optional background enterprise data management... bringing capabilities such as data protection, audit, encryption and up to 2:1 KVCache data reduction to a cluster that has an ultra-streamlined data path to the GPU. With VAST, AI labs don't have to choose... They can get performance and killer global data management features. This space is evolving right now... lots of room to invent. DM me to co-develop the future of accelerated inference systems with us. https://t.co/BNxhiYD8ZO

Jeff Denworth@JeffDenworth

I'm going to paraphrase @VAST_Data's CEO Renen Hallak on this one: "As we build our company, we aspire to the example set by great companies built before us. We try to follow their path, from one milestone to the next. From selling $1M, to $10M, to $100M, to $1B. From burning cash, to breaking even, to profitability. Each milestone is an additional step toward VAST Data being one of the greats. And then, one day, we realize we have stumbled upon a milestone our predecessors have never reached. We realize that going forward, there is no precedence and there is no other choice but to forge our own path." Today's announcement with CoreWeave is testament to a vibrant partnership between two AI infrastructure pioneers, and a signal to the world that the tomorrow's intelligence will not come from yesterday's technology. We are honored to work with their team, and humbly accept the challenge to help CW soar to even greater heights. https://t.co/dze9auIE5I