Pure Storage unveils FlashBlade for AI & HPC workloads

Pure Storage has introduced a new data storage platform, the FlashBlade//EXA, designed to enhance performance for AI and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads.

The FlashBlade//EXA aims to resolve bottlenecks faced by legacy storage systems in handling extensive AI and HPC projects. It is tailored to support modern AI applications by breaking through metadata performance limitations. "We are seeing many exciting use cases in AI and HPC in Australia & New Zealand and around the Asia Pacific. The FlashBlade//EXA is a perfect solution for organisations that are executing large scale AI and HPC projects and have faced metadata and performance bottlenecks with legacy storage systems. This solution empowers our channel partners to unlock new opportunities for their customers, driving innovation and growth across the region," noted Mark Jobbins, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Asia Pacific & Japan at Pure Storage.

The architecture of FlashBlade//EXA supports scalable performance that can handle high concurrency and metadata operations. Its design allows both data and metadata to scale independently and integrates third-party data nodes for flexible performance expansion. The platform also aims to simplify deployment and management with standard protocols.

Rob Lee, Chief Technology Officer at Pure Storage, commented on the new platform, "FlashBlade//EXA delivers a massively parallel architecture that enables independent scaling of data and metadata to provide customers with unmatched performance, scalability, and adaptability for some of the largest, most demanding data environments in the world. Storage is now accelerating the pace of large-scale HPC and AI evolution."

The storage challenges addressed by FlashBlade//EXA have become more pressing with the increasing use of powerful GPUs for AI models, where exponential model growth demands equally scalable storage solutions. Legacy architectures were not designed to meet these modern needs, which include demands for parallel and concurrent operations, and high-speed metadata management.

Rob Davis, Vice President of Storage Networking Technology at NVIDIA, remarked, "Data is the fuel for enterprise AI factories, directly impacting performance and reliability of AI applications. With NVIDIA networking, the FlashBlade//EXA platform enables organizations to leverage the full potential of AI technologies while maintaining data security, scalability, and performance for model training, fine tuning, and the latest agentic AI and reasoning inference requirements."

Pete Manca, President of Penguin Solutions, provided further industry perspective, stating, "At Penguin Solutions, we are experts at helping our customers deploy AI infrastructure at scale. We know the complexity involved, and that legacy storage systems can undermine high-performing AI infrastructure. FlashBlade//EXA is purpose-built for the demands of modern AI and HPC workloads. It provides the bandwidth, manageability at scale, and configurable, disaggregated architecture needed to power today's large data centers. We see it as an ideal solution for intensive AI environments and HPC applications."

Analysing the market impact, Matt Kimball, Vice President & Principal Analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, said, "AI has disrupted the storage market. Legacy storage environments are unable to handle the massive parallelism required of AI and HPC. Modern storage and data platforms must continuously feed the GPUs and accelerators training the large foundation models, and support the most demanding workloads. However, with high performance storage comes complexity. With FlashBlade//EXA, Pure Storage is leveraging its decade of experience unlocking the potential of metadata performance, while abstracting the complexity associated with managing these environments. If FlashBlade//EXA delivers on its promise, it will return real value to organizations of all sizes."

FlashBlade//EXA is expected to be available in mid-2025, offering a potential shift in AI and HPC data storage capabilities by combining efficiency with exceptional performance.