Jak Cloudian rewolucjonizuje przechowywanie danych w erze sztucznej inteligencji

Reimagining Data Storage in the AI Era and the Pioneers Behind It

Artificial Intelligence (AI) vehicles are driving change in how businesses manage and handle their data. Traditional storage systems feel clunky and outdated, built for simpler times and fewer users. Modern AI needs real-time, large-scale data access, something old storage systems just can’t keep up with, as they tend to add layers of complexity that stifle AI performance. Data has to journey through multiple stages before it gets to the GPU, the workhorse behind AI models.

Cloudian: An Innovator in Data Storage

When it comes to tackling this dilemma, tech firm Cloudian is leading the charge. MIT graduates Michael Tso and Hiroshi Ohta co-founded the firm, known for its scalable, AI-friendly storage platform that streamlines the data flow from storage to processing units. Its architecture includes parallel computing, which effectively reduces latency and complexity and enables direct, high-speed transfers from storage to the GPU, or CPU. This design ensures seamless scalability while simplifying the development of AI tools on a commercial scale.

Tso’s mantra when it comes to AI is straightforward: “It’s all about the data.” As he rightly puts it, minor increments in data aren’t enough to improve AI performance. We’re talking about needing 1,000 times more data, stored and processed in a way that doesn’t necessitate moving it around. Cloudian’s platform uniquely allows data to be computed as it’s ingested, removing the need for time-consuming transfers and hence making real-time AI operations possible.

Tso’s passion for data channels back to his time at MIT in the 90s. There, under the mentorship of Professor William Dally, he delved into parallel computing and later worked on distributed networking systems with Associate Professor Greg Papadopoulos. His journey continued at Intel, where he contributed to data synchronization algorithms and helped ignite the ringtone download industry. These experiences, coupled with his adventures at the startup Inktomi and as a co-founder of Gemini Mobile Technologies, equipped him with the necessary insight to chart new territory in data storage.

Cloudian’s journey began in earnest with the rise of cloud computing in the late 2000s. Tso observed a significant bottleneck: the growth of data exceeded the pace of network speeds. Big data, he says, is a lot like gravity: it’s hard to move, which means the cloud solution needs to come to it. This idea led to the foundation of Cloudian in 2012, with its prime focus being distributed, cloud-compatible storage solutions.

Cloudian’s Impact on the AI Landscape and Its Future

Cloudian didn’t initially forsee AI as its primary consumer, but as AI started taking up more of the data usage space, Cloudian’s architecture proved to be a perfect solution. The company’s object storage solution is ideal for handling unstructured data. A significant upgrade in July transformed raw data into a vector form, ready for immediate action by AI models, making engines for search, recommendation, and AI assistants more potent.

In a strategic partnership with NVIDIA, Cloudian has seamlessly integrated its storage systems with NVIDIA’s powerful GPUs. “GPUs,” explains Tso, “are only practical when they’re fed data non-stop.” By embedding AI functions directly into its storage, Cloudian was able to process data closer to where it’s collected which resulted in lower latency and energy costs, faster AI calculations and better efficiency.

Now, Cloudian assists around 1,000 organizations worldwide, encompassing automakers, healthcare providers, government agencies, and financial firms. The National Library of Medicine and the National Cancer Database use Cloudian to store intricate datasets, vital for AI-driven research. Simultaneously, a major automaker employs their AI model to predict when its factory robots require maintenance.

Tso’s vision for the future of data storage focuses on making GPUs more effective by removing any layers impeding the data path. Cloudian’s AI-first storage strategy is aiding businesses in achieving this goal, helping to transform their raw data into a real-time resource advancing next-generation intelligence.

For the full story, read the original article at MIT News.