July, 2024 - NAND Research

Research Note: Western Digital FQ4 2024 Earnings

Western Digital Corporation (WDC) reported strong financial results for its fiscal fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2024, highlighting robust performance across its product segments and strategic advancements in the storage market, mainly driven by AI data demands.

Research Report: Solving AI Data Pipeline Inefficiencies, the VAST Data Way

While AI is foundational to the next wave of digital transformation, traditional data and storage infrastructure -even many parallel file systems- isn’t prepared for the demands required to support today’s AI lifecycle, which places unprecedented demands on storage and data infrastructure.

Developing an effective data infrastructure for AI requires a holistic approach, considering data, database, processing, and storage as a unified entity. This is how VAST Data approaches the challenge.

Quick Take: Azure’s Impact on Microsoft FQ4 2024 Earnings

Microsoft closed its fiscal year with solid financial results, reporting a total annual revenue of more than $245 billion, a 15% year-over-year increase. Microsoft Cloud (which include Azure, LInkedIn, and Office 365) revenue surpassed $135 billion, growing 23% year-over-year.

Research Note: AMD Q2 2024 Data Center Earnings

AMD reported strong Q2 financial results, with total revenue reaching $5.8 billion, a 9% year-over-year increase. The Data Center segment, a key driver of this performance, achieved a record revenue of $2.8 billion, reflecting a 115% year-over-year growth.

Backgrounder: State of CXL

Compute Express Link (CXL) is a high-speed interconnect standard designed to enhance communication between CPUs, GPUs, memory, and other accelerators. It’s designed to address the growing needs for efficient data sharing and coherent memory access in data centers, HPC, and AI-driven workloads.

Research Brief: Oracle Exadata on Exascale Infrastructure

Oracle announced the general availability of the Oracle Exadata Database Service on Exascale Infrastructure, offering extreme performance, reliability, availability, and security for Oracle Database workloads. This new infrastructure is now available on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), catering to any workload size for all Oracle Database customers.

Research Note: onsemi EliteSIC M3e MOSFET

onsemi’s new EliteSiC M3e MOSFETs address the growing demands for more efficient, reliable, and cost-effective power solutions across various industries. The increasing global focus on mitigating climate change and transitioning to renewable energy sources necessitates significant advancements in power semiconductor technology. onsemi’s latest generation EliteSiC M3e MOSFETs are a major step forward.

Research Report: Impact of Storage Architecture on the AI Lifecycle

Traditional storage solutions, whether on-premises or in the cloud, often fail to meet the varying needs of each phase of the AI lifecycle. These legacy approaches are particularly ill-suited for the demands of distributed training, where keeping an expensive AI training cluster idle has a real economic impact on the enterprise.

Research Note: IBM Q2 2024 Earnings

IBM reported a robust second quarter, surpassing expectations across key financial metrics. The company continues to capitalize on its hybrid cloud and AI strategy, driving solid performance in software and infrastructure. However, consulting services experienced slower growth due to macroeconomic challenges.

Let OpenAI GPT-4o Mini Introduce Itself

We usually write our own content, using LLMs to help refine our research, but in honor of OpenAI releasing its new GPT-4o Mini language model just a day after Meta released its Llama 3.1, and on the same day Mistral releases its new Mistral Large 2, we’ll let GPT 4o Mini tell you about itself.

Research Note: Meta Llama 3.1

Meta recently released its new Llama 3.1 large language model, setting a new benchmark for open-source models. This latest iteration of the Llama series enhances AI capabilities while underscoring Meta’s continuing commitment to democratizing advanced technology. Along with the updated model, Meta also released a new suite of ethical AI tools.

Quick Take: Micron 9550, The Industry’s Fastest Data Center SSD

Micron today announced its new 9550 NVMe SSD, setting a new benchmark as the industry’s fastest data center SSD. The new SSD meets the stringent demands of modern data centers, particularly those supporting AI and other performance-sensitive workloads.

Research Note: NVIDIA AI Factory & NIM Inference Microservices

NVIDIA announced its new NVIDIA AI Foundry, a service designed to supercharge generative AI capabilities for enterprises using Meta’s just-released Llama 3.1 models, along with its new NIM Inference microservices.

The new offerings significantly advance the ability to customize and deploy AI models for domain-specific applications.

Research Note: NTT Data’s New AI Edge Platform

NTT Data unveiled its new Edge AI platform, which aims to accelerate IT/OT convergence by bringing AI processing to the edge. The fully managed solution enables real-time decisions, enhances operational efficiencies, and deploys secure AI applications across various industries, driving the adoption of advanced Industry 4.0 technologies.

Quick Take: SAP’s Strong Q2 Earnings

SAP SE delivered robust earnings and guidance largely in-line with analyst estimates for the second quarter of 2024, highlighted by strong cloud momentum and significant growth in key financial metrics.

Research Note: Mistral NeMo 12B Small Language Model

Mistral AI and NVIDIA launched Mistral NeMo 12B, a state-of-the-art language model for enterprise applications such as chatbots, multilingual tasks, coding, and summarization. The collaboration combines Mistral AI’s training data expertise with NVIDIA’s optimized hardware and software ecosystem, offering high performance across diverse applications.

Quick Take: OpenText Cloud Editions (CE) 24.3

OpenText announced the release of Cloud Editions (CE) 24.3, a significant updated integrating advanced information management, trusted cloud solutions, robust security measures, and AI.

Research Note: NetApp Updates Cloud Offerings

NetApp announced new capabilities designed for strategic cloud workloads, including GenAI and VMware, to help reduce the resources and risks for managing these workloads in hybrid multi-cloud environments.

Research Note: AWS Updates Bedrock

Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a series of significant enhancements to its Bedrock platform aimed at bolstering the capabilities and reliability of generative AI applications. These enhancements focus on improved data connectivity, advanced safety features, and robust governance mechanisms.

Research Note: AMD Acquires Silo AI

AMD announced a definitive agreement to acquire Silo AI, Europe’s largest private AI lab, for approximately $665 million in an all-cash transaction. This acquisition aligns with AMD’s strategy to deliver end-to-end AI solutions based on open standards, enhancing its partnership with the global AI ecosystem.

Quick Take: AWS Launches Graviton 4

Today, Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched its Graviton4 processors, the fourth generation of its Arm-based custom processors. This new chip is touted as AWS’s most energy-efficient and high-performance solution for cloud workloads, marking a significant upgrade over its predecessor, Graviton3.

Quick Take: VAST Data Platform Achieves NVIDIA Partner Network Certification

VAST Data announced that its VAST Data Platform has been certified as a high-performance storage solution for NVIDIA Partner Network cloud partners. The certification highlights VAST’s position as a leading data platform provider for AI cloud infrastructure and enhances its collaboration with NVIDIA in building next-generation AI factories.

Research Note: Microsoft & IBM’s Expanded Cyber Security Alliance

Microsoft and IBM announced an enhanced collaboration to strengthen the cybersecurity capabilities of clients navigating hybrid cloud environments.

The partnership leverages IBM Consulting’s industry-leading cybersecurity services and Microsoft’s comprehensive security technology portfolio to provide advanced, integrated solutions for modern security operations and cloud identity management.

Research Note: Micron FQ3 2024 Earnings

Micron Technology delivered a strong performance in Q3 FY2024, significantly surpassing market expectations in several key areas. The company’s financial results reflect robust demand, strategic pricing, and technological advancements that position it well for future growth.

Month: July 2024