Hitachi Vantara & Supermicro unite to power enterprise AI growth

Hitachi Vantara is working towards a strategic partnership with Supermicro to provide enterprises with integrated solutions for AI infrastructure, mission-critical applications, and data-intensive workloads.

The collaboration seeks to combine Supermicro's GPU and AI compute capabilities with Hitachi Vantara's Virtual Storage Platform One (VSP One), offering enterprises a single foundation for running advanced AI models, analytics, and core business operations. The two companies are in the process of finalising an agreement that will allow Supermicro to offer VSP One to its customers, while Hitachi Vantara will sell Supermicro's servers, storage, graphics processing units (GPUs), and related hardware systems. This arrangement is expected to give both companies' customers broader access through established distribution channels.

Enterprise data pressures

Many businesses are facing increasing demands from rapid data growth and a heightened need for AI-driven insights. According to recent survey data referenced by the companies, 85% of organisations are already using data lakehouses for developing AI models, and this share is expected to rise to 67% conducting most analytics on lakehouses within three years, compared to 55% currently.

Nonetheless, businesses encounter a range of challenges, such as fragmented data systems, slow data transfer, and increasing costs, all of which complicate efforts to scale AI initiatives. By joining compute and data management technologies and providing enterprise-level support, the partnership aims to streamline infrastructure and help firms gain greater value from existing AI investments.

Technology integration details

The centrepiece of the collaboration is VSP One, Hitachi Vantara's unified platform that merges block, file, object, and software-defined storage in a single environment. According to the companies, this allows for streamlined deployment across different storage requirements.

Pairing VSP One Block with Supermicro servers incorporates an all-flash storage architecture that provides high throughput, low latency, and robust input/output operations per second (IOPS) performance. Such characteristics are suited to powering both mission-critical applications and AI training operations, according to the companies. VSP One SDS expands these capabilities into hybrid cloud settings through software-defined storage, while VSP One Object supports data intelligence services, including native support for Amazon S3 Tables. This makes it possible for customers to move from unstructured to structured data formats and perform analytics on open-format data without requiring extra data handling operations.

"The convergence of Supermicro's leadership in AI compute with the scale and resiliency of Hitachi Vantara's VSP One platform marks an important step in building the foundation that will guide the future of enterprise AI," said Sheila Rohra, Chief Executive Officer, Hitachi Vantara. "As data volumes explode, bringing compute and data closer together will enable scalable workload support without disruption. Coupled with enterprise-class service and support, we are helping organisations gain better control over their data so they can unlock new sources of value and lead in the era of AI-driven business."

VSP One serves as the foundation for Hitachi iQ, the company's AI and data orchestration portfolio, which is designed to optimise workflows for advanced analytics and machine learning. Integrating VSP One with Supermicro's GPU-accelerated hardware through Hitachi iQ is aimed at improving data processing, governance, and protection efficiencies, while maintaining alignment between compute and data management. The companies suggest this approach provides a more complete infrastructure for AI, GenAI, analytics, and data lake use cases across various industries.

"Supermicro and Hitachi are collaborating to help enterprises accelerate their adoption and use of AI," said Vik Malyala, President and Managing Director, EMEA and Senior Vice President, Technology and AI, Supermicro. "Our AI-optimised, compute, and storage servers leverage advanced GPUs, CPUs, and NVME's. Combined with Hitachi Vantara's enterprise data management platform and Hitachi iQ portfolio options will support compute-intensive workloads for dynamic vertical applications yielding better performance and efficiency for customers."

Channel distribution

The companies plan to distribute these technologies globally. This will include VSP One Block, VSP One SDS, and VSP One Object, with management capabilities integrated into the VSP 360 unified control plane. Partners working with Supermicro will have access to a greater array of enterprise block storage options, and Hitachi Vantara's channel partners will have access to timely delivery of GPU servers as part of the Hitachi iQ portfolio.