We founded WEKA a decade ago because we believed there had to be a fundamentally different, better way to store, manage, and process large-scale unstructured datasets. We had one goal in mind: to create a single, unified solution that could address the increasingly accelerated compute and data processing demands organizations faced with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and GPU-accelerated high-performance computing (HPC) and workloads—the early precursors to the current wave of generative AI and quantum workloads, which were starting to reshape the modern data environments.

With our prior experiences building products and solutions for companies that were essentially band-aids to address these data challenges in piecemeal form and which largely involved assembling disparate storage infrastructure products that trapped customers in endless refresh cycles with limited innovation, we, as founders, saw an opportunity to build something different. Something that wouldn’t require triage every couple of years to try (and fail) to keep pace with ever-increasing volumes of data. Something purpose-built and architected from the ground up to support dynamic data pipelines and eliminate data storage silos. A true data platform.

We knew it would need to be capable of supporting exascale workloads, able to process tens to hundreds of terabytes of data per second, be as simple to use as an iPhone, and be deployable within and beyond the walls of the traditional data center to support an increasingly hybrid and multicloud world.

Ten years later, the WEKA Data Platform delivers on that vision, helping our customers rearchitect their data environments to support an AI-driven future. We learned along the way that conceiving and building a single product from the ground up to solve a variety complex data challenges is no easy feat. But today, we are exceedingly proud to deliver a unified AI-native platform solution fortified with rich data services and hybrid cloud capabilities that is helping our customers to harness GenAI, accelerate their GPUs, and prepare for an exascale future. The WEKA Data Platform has been battle-tested across hundreds of the world’s largest AI projects and in data-intensive environments across numerous industries, including drug discovery, autonomous driving, scientific research and discovery, healthcare, manufacturing, and media & entertainment, to name only a few.

This year, we are delighted that Gartner has recognized our pioneering vision for a single data platform solution to address modern data challenges for the first time with the launch of the 2024 Gartner File and Object Storage Platform Magic Quadrant. We’re honored to have been named a Visionary in this new market category.

For the first time, the category definition covers solutions that comprise file and object storage platforms that store, secure, protect, and scale an organization’s unstructured data with access over the network using protocols such as NFS, SMB, and S3. Although we’re the only vendor in the report that opted to build a new approach to solve the challenges of the AI era, we are proud to have played a part in pioneering this new market category and see the ensuing industry groundswell with recognized traditional storage players embracing a unified data platform approach.

Although we are excited to see this validation of our vision, it’s still a baby step in what we at WEKA believe needs to be a paradigm shift to help our enterprise customers make the jump to become AI-driven. When it comes to the backbone of how ever-increasing unstructured data can move throughout an environment – on-premises, in the cloud, or both – we need to continue evolving out of the traditional view of prioritizing where data is stored and more toward how it can move around freely and fluidly. Enterprise AI is moving from hype to reality faster than we’ve ever seen with any new technology before it, so the need to accelerate our thinking as an industry to align and keep pace with customer needs has never been more critical.

For years, we’ve known every company is a software company. Now, every company must become an AI-native company to survive and thrive in the AI era. WEKA is committed to pushing the envelope to ensure our customers lead the way an AI-powered world.

Read and download a complimentary copy of the 2024 Gartner Magic Quadrant for File & Object Storage Platforms – no registration required: https://www.weka.io/lp/gartner-magic-quadrant-2024/