In the digital economy, data is cast as a critical asset, one that’s key to production. Indeed, data is now a foundational and strategic resource for every organization and, as we step into the YB — yottabyte — age, data applications are proliferating, making trustworthiness and reliability central to data infrastructure.
Dr. Peter Zhou, president of Huawei’s Data Storage Product Line, explains that as data usage evolves, so must storage solutions. AI demands efficient, data-driven storage.
“AI is different,” Zhou notes. “It’s the right time to redefine data storage.”
Typically, boosting AI data centre performance focuses on adding GPUs. However, Zhou points out that even the fastest GPUs wait for data and consume significant energy. AI already accounts for 50% of data centre energy usage, which could match Japan’s total energy consumption by 2026.
OptimiSing storage is key. Traditional storage emphasised performance, data paradigms, and reliability.
For AI, Zhou identifies new critical factors: Performance: Needs to be 10-times higher. Data Fabric: Must aid in managing data assets. New Data Paradigms: Including vector, tensor, and RAG. Scalability: Both scale-out and scale-up capabilities. Data Resilience: Must include ransomware detection and recoverability, and Sustainability: Improved energy efficiency is essential.
Today at Huawei Africa Connect, the Chinese tech giant announced Huawei OceanStor A800, which addresses these needs with data control separation, embedded ransomware detection, a data fabric, multiple data paradigms, and increased disk capacity.
Huawei OceanStor A800 offers 10-times higher performance, scales to 512 controllers and 4,096 cards, and runs efficiently at 0.7 watt per Tb for 1PB/u. It supports all data paradigms and ensures robust data resilience.
It is designed to accelerate the training and inference of industry-specific models, paving the way to the AI era.
Huawei OceanStor storage unlocks new levels of intelligence and power, which lie inherent in data, helping organisations of all sizes navigate the uncertain, complex, and diverse marketplace. Purpose-built for the digital world, Huawei OceanStor offers converged and flexible storage solutions that boast the power and reliability needed to meet green, sustainable, and future-facing development goals.
To meet AI’s massive data demands, Huawei introduces a new SSD for energy-efficient data centres, offering 10-times the capacity in the same size. This reduces space and energy consumption.
Managing and identifying data assets is also crucial. Huawei’s new AI software and data fabric, Omni-Dataverse, help users understand, visualise, and efficiently use their data assets.
To be AI-ready, enterprises must get data-ready. The Omni-Dataverse global file system built in the DME makes enterprise data assets visible, manageable, and mobile across regions, thereby building a solid AI data lake storage foundation for enterprises
