Utilizing Tech - Season 7: AI Data Infrastructure Presented by Solidigm - 08x00: Introducing AI at the Edge with Solidigm

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

IT architecture is evolving rapidly as AI moves to the edge. This season on Utilizing Tech, ⁠Stephen Foskett⁠ and co-hosts ⁠Scott Shadley⁠ and Jeniece Wnorowski⁠ of Solidigm⁠ will explore how next-generation AI infrastructure is revolutionizing industries from healthcare to high-performance computing. With insights from leading companies Verge IO, Graid Technology, and WEKA as well as practitioners like Nature Fresh Farms and Los Alamos Nation Labs, we will show how the latest advancements in storage, data protection, and virtualization that are enabling AI to thrive beyond traditional data centers. Join us every Monday as we bring you expert discussions on the future of edge AI.This season of Utilizing Tech is presented by Solidigm. For more information on Solidigm, head to their website and learn more about their AI efforts through the dedicated site section. Follow Solidigm on X/Twitter and LinkedIn.Hosts: Stephen Foskett, President of the Tech Field Day Business Unit and Organizer of the Tech Field Day Event SeriesJeniece Wnorowski, Head of Influencer Marketing at Solidigm Scott Shadley, Leadership Narrative Director and Evangelist at SolidigmFollow Tech Field Day on LinkedIn, on X/Twitter, on Bluesky, and on Mastodon. Visit the Tech Field Day website for more information on upcoming events. For more episodes of Utilizing Tech, head to the dedicated website and follow the show on X/Twitter, on Bluesky, and on Mastodon.

Get ready for an exciting 2025 as Edge AI takes center stage. With companies like Texera and Orbital Studios delivering groundbreaking applications powered by high-performance storage, Verge I.O., Weka, and Veeam driving innovations in virtualization, data management, and data protection, the Edge is where the action is. From mobile data collection, transforming core HPC applications

to national labs like Los Alamos, pushing the boundaries of edge computing, this season of Utilizing Tech will showcase how next-gen AI infrastructure is setting the stage for applications far beyond today's generative AI systems. Welcome to Utilizing Tech, the podcast about emerging technology from Tech Field Day, now part of the Futurum Group. This season of Utilizing Tech is presented by Solidim and focuses on AI at the Edge and other related topics. I'm your host, Stephen Fosket, president of Tech Field Day for the Futurum Group and organizer

of the Tech Field Day event series. Joining me this season from Solid Eye are two old friends and co-hosts, Janice Narowski and Scott Shadley. Welcome to the show. Let's start with just a quick introduction. Janice, you were on our previous season. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Yes, thank you, Stephen. Thank you so much for having us back. We had an amazing season last season. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Yes, thank you, Stephen. Thank you so much for having us back. We had an amazing season last season and we want to do this again. We'll have a little bit of a different focus, but before we dive into that, I'll reintroduce myself. Janice Thurowski, Head of Influencer Marketing for Solidime. I'm the head of influencer marketing for Solidim. I've actually been in the industry now for 14 years, focused on storage. So I've got some knowledge under my belt, but what I'm really excited about and doing this season

is talking to more of our ecosystem vendors and partners and seeing what they're up to with Edge and AI. It's an ever evolving thing. I mentioned I've been here 14 years, but every day is a new day. So I'm really excited about this season. Excellent. Well, it's great to have you back. We enjoyed talking to you in 2024.

And also joining us this time around is an old friend of mine from the industry as well, Mr. Scott Shadley. Scott, tell us a little bit about yourself. Hey, Stephen, it's good to be back on camera with you again. So I've been doing this a little bit longer than Janiece, and I won't say how many years because it's starting to sound like too many.

Right now I'm focused on what we'd call evangelism. My goal in life right now is to help produce content and valuable added information related to how SolidIME is helping our customers and the industry grow. So it's not necessarily just about revenue. It's about making sure people know how to use the technology that we have. And that's kind of a focus for me now, but been excited. As you mentioned, we've been friends, I think 2011 is when we officially kicked off this relationship. So it's been a few years. Absolutely. And I'm so happy to see you at SolidIME. I'm so happy to get you involved in some stuff. You know, Scott, you've also done some other field day stuff with us and join me as well on the Gestalt IT Rundown.

So it's pretty neat to have you here. I am Stephen Foskett, as I mentioned, I'm the organizer of the Tech Field Day series. I'm also specifically focused on Edge and AI Field Day. And wouldn't you know it? That's what we're gonna talk about here. So this is a topic that has come up repeatedly at Edge Field Day, AI, the importance of AI at the Edge, and at AI Field Day,

the importance of the Edge for AI. And the growing aspect of AI becoming, and specifically AI applications and AI inferencing, becoming increasingly important at the Edge. We have talked about this on previous episodes of Utilizing Tech focused on AI. We heard about it from companies presenting it AI Field Day. Essentially, once all the training and all that sort of backroom stuff is done, all of these applications are going to be deployed at the edge. And that results in special requirements for edge servers

in order to meet this need. Now, I myself am doing this. I actually have AI inferencing running on a Google Coral TPU on an Intel NUC at an edge location as an experiment myself. It's really cool to see what you can do with these chips, but it has driven home the importance of having high performance storage, high performance networking,

the kind of bandwidth that's happening. All of this stuff is really being rolled out. And that, I think, is what is so exciting about this season because Solidime is a very partner-centric company. It's a company that has lots of important, basically friends in the industry that all need what you got, which is, you know, which is high performance storage layer

that can go with the rest of the application that they're building, whether it's a storage company or a completely different company. And that's, I think, what we're going to look at this season on utilizing tech for utilizing AI at the edge. So, Janice, what are the main edge applications and edge use cases that you are concerned about and that are demanding the kind of performance

that you can bring? Yeah, I think, you know, if you take a look at it, there's so many things you could go after, right? So many different verticals. But I think where we're seeing some of the largest opportunity in an area that I'm really passionate about is healthcare, right? It's AI is revolutionizing healthcare and specifically edge computing. You're getting those boxes closer to the physician and the patient being able to collect that

data instantly and feed that data back to the doctor and not have to wait two to three weeks for your results. That's one of them. I think another area we're seeing innovation is, if you know, of course in the HPC space, right? And you think about high-performance computing, you know, looking at the Earth's crust, if you will, through, you know, the middle of the Pacific Ocean,

putting those boxes on large vessels like a ship, right? And being able to collect that data instantaneously, similar to the hospital organizations, right? I think is another big one for us. And it wouldn't be smart of us if we weren't going after say, like financial services, right, the FSI market is ripe for the edge. As well as, we have a whole team dedicated to this,

is even automotive, right? And we do have some really good examples from the past few years where we're seeing organizations like InnoNet, right? Collecting data at the edge to train their cars to be more efficient and safer on the road. We have some also with some bigger deals, right, with some other automakers that I can't necessarily name here, but he's a very well-known individual, if you will,

and you probably drive, some of you guys might be driving their cars. But those are just a few examples that we see, and sure, there's more, and some of the solutions we're building are really dedicated to some of those examples. Yeah, I mean, it's more. And some of the solutions we're building are really dedicated to some of those examples. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting to your point about, you know, the exploration of the edge. And one of the things I find most interesting that I look forward to participating in this series on is what does that really mean?

Like the edge is what? There are so many different definitions by all the different people, near edge, far edge, end point, whatever the case may be. And the markets continue to evolve. There's even things like the energy market. And we start talking about the recent issues that happened down here or down in LA with the fires that took place in January. There's always this opportunity for AI at the edge to solve even greater problems in unique environments like the energy space. And there's opportunities for stuff like that

to occur as well. So overall, the idea that putting storage closer to where you generate the data, right? Cause one of the biggest things about AI is it needs data. And the data currently today is all about memory feeding some form of a PU, an XP, you know, GPU, CPU, whatnot. But really, that data has to sit somewhere too. And that's really the key cornerstone of where I look at, where Solidaim comes into play,

whether it's the high performance, the high capacity, whatever you look at, that's where we're going to see a lot of effort put into the edge with AI and or storage as we progress through 2025. And I think, you know, we'll add to that, Scott, you know, some of the examples, you edge with AI and or storage as we progress through 2025. And I think, you know, we'll add to that, Scott, you know, some of the examples, you know, it's all about, you know, where are you going to put that storage and all about the data, but also about the software, right?

And how does all of this work, you know, more effectively at the edge? And I'm excited about this series because we do have a couple of partners we're going to bring on that can really speak to that. You know, how are they, how is the hardware being optimized with the software to really take advantage of the solution at the edge?

And, you know, that is Tuxera. Tuxera runs some pretty cool workloads in media and entertainment. I don't wanna misspeak on this, but I think they have, and actually I can say this, they have done some work with the Las Vegas Sphere and, you know, providing that really rich media entertainment experience. So that's a really good edge solution.

And then we also have some work that we're doing with a visual special effects studio in Los Angeles, working together with Dell and an organization called Orbital Studios. And ultimately what they're doing is, how can we do these special effects faster, more in a more collaborative fashion? And they're deploying a unique Edge solution

to do that with both Solid Dime and Dell. So hopefully we'll be able to bring those guys on and get the download on that. Yeah, it is interesting. When we did our Edge Field Day events and when we've done Edge as a topic here on utilizing tech, Scott's question does come up. And I think that the examples that you just gave, Janiece,

are really illustrative of the fact that Edge really, it's defined more by what it's not than by what it is. What we said at Edge Field Day recently was essentially, Edge is everything that's not data center and not cloud. In other words, it's things that are not confined. And whether that is, as you mentioned, fighting fires or collecting geo data in the field or deploying amazing graphics to the inside of a crazy landmark in Las Vegas

or working in movie studios. There are so many aspects to this. And there are so many companies that are doing just incredible things to, as Scott said, move applications, move storage, move processing closer to the source of the data. And that was something that came up actually way back in season one of Utilizing Tech,

where one of our guests suggested, and it was really kind of a mind-bending moment for me, where one of our guests said, it's not that we're collecting less data, it's that processing closer to the data collection means that we can connect, collect more data, lots more data. And that transforms the applications that can be done with that data.

So essentially, if you're limited in terms of collection to whatever you can ship back to the core, then that's all the processing you can do. But if you're not limited anymore, if you can collect an incredible amount, whether it's a high volume or a high throughput of data, then you can really open the doors to new applications. And if you can process that data in place as well, which increasingly we're seeing happening, it really is transformative in a way

that I think people don't recognize because you think, oh, storage, great, we're gonna store more data, you know, but that data would be lost. It would never have been created if it wasn't for the ability to store it at the edge. And I think that that's really what comes out

of some of these things and why so many companies are looking at trying to figure out how to deploy AI and advanced data processing applications at the edge. Is that what you're seeing as well? Absolutely. I mean, I totally agree with you on that. It's one of those things also that you have to think about. There's a beautiful transportation issue that we're trying to deal with too. And you think about, for example, in Ohio, the freeways are four lanes and still have some traffic, but maybe you can get around a little easier and things like that, because I know you're

near and dear to Ohio. but down here in LA, I've got 16 lanes of freeway and I can still only go five miles an hour. And that's literally a direct representation of trying to move the data we're generating in Edge to a core. So not even do we get the data there, how long does it take to get there? And there's partnerships we have with Los Alamos National Labs that will be able to talk about how they're even looking at how the massive amounts of data they generate in microseconds

and nanoseconds can be captured and managed appropriately. And that's an epitome of being able to track down and manage data, whether it be in a core high-performance system or all the way out at an edge. So lots of opportunity from that perspective to your point. So we are going to be talking a lot about AI because you know it's 2025 everything's about AI. But that's not really the end of the discussion either. AI and especially if we want to zoom in on really like practical applications, Generative AI, large language models, that's not the whole world.

It's not even the whole world of AI. And my position is that in 2025, we're going to see very different types of AI models being developed because we've proven now that we can create convincing text input, output, text processing with large language models. We've proven that we can do some incredible things with computer vision and sensors using AI. The door is open and now everyone is going to be looking at that and thinking, okay, if it's good for text and if it's good for cameras, then what else can I do with it? If it's good at generating text, if it's good at generating data from unstructured arbitrary data, what else can I do with it? Building that kind of infrastructure, I think, is what a lot of these companies

in the industry are working on. They're trying to figure out ways of basically making a platform that makes things possible and that gives people new ideas. What elements of that platform are requiring this kind of high-performance storage? And what new ideas do you think are going to come on the, based on the availability of that infrastructure at the edge? You know, I think when you look at, you know, text, audio, and then video, right, thinking about it in terms of, you know, small, medium, large, right, I think just the parameters around those things are going to beg for new types of innovation from

the software and how does all this work? I also think that in 2025, people are like, okay, 2024 deployed this, we tested it, we hired some engineers, we tried to make this AI thing work. We're just figuring it out. Prior to 2024 was 2023. It was like when the big boom started to happen. Everyone was like a frenzy around it. But I think 2025 is really about where is the value? What value am I seeing?

I know how to deploy this, but where can I really get the value and drive business? And I think that's where we're gonna start to see organizations come up and develop to your point, Steven, um, new ways of looking at this and new, and new applications. Well, I think when you look at it from an infrastructure point of view, right. And we start looking as we go further out to the edge, uh, the idea that,

you know, you've got these, uh, ability to generate information and do something with it, whether you call it AI or data transformation, data prep, pick your acronym or phrase for it. The architecture of those systems is unique. You can't put a rack anywhere you want. Even if you could, is it durable enough? Can you get the power to it? For example, there's a big story about one of

the large data centers going up in the Midwest, and they've got this grand plan to make this massive facility, but they've only been able to power a quarter of it, and they have no line of sight to power enough the other three quarters. Think about that kind of scale problem at an edge environment, where I don't even get a half rack, or I get, to your point, a nook, or something similar is all I've got available to work with. So we've got to start realizing that as we push this further into the edge, these architectures and these footprints

are going to change drastically and being able to adapt to what's necessary for those is kind of key. So gathering that data quickly and storing a large amount of it so you can funnel it off nice and slow is imperative as much as anything else. And then doing things like data protection and how you get there. So we have some plans that talk about, you know,

data recovery and data protection with some partners as well. So there's great opportunities to see, you know, the edge infrastructure evolved where it can get to. And I hate to necessarily throw out, you know, the hype cycle, if you will, but you know, there's this whole thing. We've spent a ton of money now.

It's like, okay, now we got to figure this out for real and how can we sustain it long-term? And I think that's where you're going to see a little bit of an inflection point towards the end of 25 around that kind of stuff. And I'll say a little spoiler alert here. So I can't get too deep into it, right? Cause I'm not sure if the timing will be right when we really push things out. But we do have an environment that we're setting up, which is going to allow people to come in and test, right? Allow organizations and some of our ecosystem partners and customers and even some that aren't on our list yet to come in and test some of their workloads

with some of our SSDs in a lab, in a remote lab. So we haven't really fully pushed this out the gate, but stay tuned, because as we start rolling out these episodes, we may be talking about how some of these partners are thinking about tapping into this new lab. And Scott, there's a couple of things you said, it's like, okay, you're right. It's about being able to scale. And we didn't talk about this yet, but we're gonna continue to build on our 122, right?

We launched our 122. There'll be something bigger coming out in the very near future. You have to do the math. Everyone's like, okay, it's around the 256 range. 122 refers to, you're not gonna believe this if you're not familiar, terabytes of storage on one SSD. That is a big number.

Still shocks me. Still shocks me to this day, and it's not stopping, right? And I think there'll also be other types of innovation where it's not just about the capacity. Some of the things Scott was alluding to was, you know, software is gonna be there at the edge, the capacity of the drive, but hey, there's gonna be a world where we're maybe able to do a little more compute at the edge than we used to.

So can't say much more about that, but there's some new innovation coming down from SolidIME and the industry. Yeah, last season, we talked about the 60 terabyte breakthrough and what that enabled and the fact that it's not just about terabytes either. It's about delivering that with performance and with reliability. Anyone could throw together. Well, I don't know about a 60 terabyte, a pretty big SSD, but it's awful hard to put

one together that's actually enterprise reliable in adverse conditions. Because of course, we've got to think about, you know, at the edge, you've got heating concerns, you've got vibration concerns, you've got all sorts of things that might come up. You know, these things have to be built. Because at the end of the day, if you don't have the data, then you don't have anything. It's like storage is the foundation for all the applications on top of it. And data management.

And that's another thing you mentioned there, scalability. We've got to think about elements of the stack, like how are these things scaled? How is data moved? How is data presented to applications? And so one of the companies that we're talking about bringing on here would be Weka, which of course is a leader in scaling storage and performance

all the way from, well, storage devices up to actually truly presenting data to applications, which I think is an incredible move for our whole storage industry. And you mentioned data protection. Well, we're talking about Veeam, right? I mean, they are an incredible company as well, who have, I think they're the biggest data protection company in the planet right now, aren't they?

I think so. I think that's where they're headed, yes, absolutely. So that's pretty cool. And then of course, you've got other alternative things that we've got to think about with the platform as well, like virtualization. And then of course, you've got other alternative things that we've got to think about with a platform as well, like virtualization. And that whole market has really been shaken up

with Broadcom purchasing VMware. We've been talking a lot about that at Edge Field Day, but what are you seeing in terms of building platforms, these building blocks? Yeah, I mean, you mentioned all the cloud examples, Stephen, right? And we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about that. But organizations like Verge.io who are just coming in

and I wouldn't say they're just taking away market share from VMware, but it's still such a growing market that there's room for the more nimble companies to kind of come in and make it a little more simple, right? So it'll be interesting to hear how Verge differentiates themselves in this ever evolving market versus say, you know, a vSAN solution.

You know, likewise, there are a couple of others that aren't on our list that we haven't talked about, but organizations like CoreWeave, Likewise, there are a couple of others that aren't on our list that we haven't talked about, but organizations like CoreWeave. CoreWeave is a really good example of not just a cloud provider, but somebody who's really done an effective job with taking advantage of the GPUs. And a lot of those GPUs that people can't even get their hands on, right? But they've also leaned into storage as well. And that's been a very important ingredient to their success and their solution. Yeah. And I think kind of leaning back to the virtualization piece of it and things like that, another

aspect of it where SolidIME sees the need when you talk about something like a 122 terabyte drive, right? Massive capacity, but how do I split it up or share it effectively? And so we actually participate by heavily in a lot of the standards works that are being done around that, you know, kind of shifting gears a little bit from customer partnerships, but industry, industry driving things like NVMe or NBM Express and SNIA and those other organizations, OCP, we help put things in those platforms and those projects and those specs, revs, whatever you want to call them,

that help people be able to utilize the technology more to allow us to spread the wealth, virtualize more, do this, do that with the technology, which are things you just simply can't do with other forms of storage. I have to say public service announcement once again, that Scott Shadley sits on a lot of the boards of those organizations.

So we're really lucky to have you, Scott, for that reason. But you do have a wealth of knowledge there. So just so the audience knows if they have questions, they can go to you. Absolutely. And, you know, Scott, that's, I think, one of the coolest things as well about having a company like Solidim that is not, you know, I don't know. You know, basically it's a friendly company to the whole industry. It really helps because it means that you can participate very

openly in activities like that that help us all. Because ultimately, I guess that's really what's happening here is the previous years for Edge and for AI have been about building foundations and building foundational technologies. And now we're seeing what happens when those things are brought together and when they're put into production. And that is what we're going to see at AI Field Day.

That's what we're going to see at Cloud Field Day. And that's what we're going to hear about on utilizing tech this season. I guess let's wrap up this preview episode of the season of utilizing tech. What's one thing that you're really excited to be able to share with the audience this year? Maybe it's a guest. Maybe it's a company. Maybe it's a solution.

Maybe it's just an idea. What's one thing that you think is going to be really going to knock their socks off this season of utilizing tech? Scott, I'm going to pick on you and make you go first. You know, I see from that perspective to your point is the ability to educate people on what the edge really is and what it means to deploy these types of technologies

at the edge. There's been so much emphasis on core core core and what these massive data centers are going to look like. People need some help realizing what it means to be at the edge and I look forward to that. And one of my favorite things is you know looking at presentations I get to do down the road. Are you a lemming? Are you going to fall off the edge of the ledge? You know the ledge of the edge and that's part of the key of what I think is going to be fun this season is just helping people realize that there's a, there's a mind shift that needs to actually take place here. Yeah. Well said, Scott. I don't know if I can

think I can one up that one, but at all, but I agree. I agree. I think one of the most exciting things that we're going to do this year as Solidime is do this episode series, right? Be a part of utilizing tech for the edge in AI and give our partners and our customers and ecosystem vendors a voice and an opportunity to do so in a way that isn't just high level, but really deep diving into the technical details. And that's what we really appreciate about you, Stephen, and the work you do and your team. So I'm really excited, honestly, about the opportunity to bring our partners to the forefront

and get a chance to work with you guys to get those messages out. Well, it's going to be great. I can't wait to bring this to everyone. If you are excited by some of these things as well, you might want to listen back. The previous season of Utilizing Tech, we talked to a lot of similar companies. We had a lot of similar conversations

and really heard from a diverse platform of companies that are doing incredible things with storage. We're going to hear about that again this year and this season. We'll bring you a new episode every Monday starting now. So please do tune in, subscribe, enjoy. And I hope that each of these episodes is interesting and exciting. So, Janice and Scott, thank you so much for joining me today. Really looking forward to this,

the recordings of these episodes, really looking forward to hearing what the audience has to say. Before we go, please let us know again who you are and where can we connect with you, where can we continue this conversation? Let's start with you, Janiece. Sure, so again, Janiece Narowski

and I can be found on LinkedIn, so please feel free to just reach out. I would also love for you to go to Saladime.com for a slash AI and you'll see some really interesting pieces there and I'm happy to circle back with any questions you have. Thank you. And I'm Scott Shadley also on LinkedIn.

Pretty easy to find me there. I'm one of the only ones out there that's a Scott Shadley, also on LinkedIn, pretty easy to find me there. I'm one of the only ones out there that's a Scott Shadley, believe it or not. Of course, I can't compete with Dorosky, but... And I'm also on the former Twitter platform, X, as well, and looking to have some fun and share also on solidime.com slash AI. And as for me, Stephen Fosket, you'll catch me on the socials at sfosket pretty much everywhere. You'll also see me most Tuesdays on the Tech Strong Gang,

most Wednesdays on the Gestalt IT Rundown, and of course, right here on the Utilizing Tech podcast on Mondays. Thank you very much for listening to this episode, this first episode of a new season of Utilizing Tech. You'll find this podcast in your favorite podcast applications, as well as on YouTube if you want to see our smiling faces. If you enjoyed this discussion, please give us a rating, give us a nice review. We would love to hear from you. This podcast was brought to you by Solidime in partnership with Tech Field Day, a part of the Futurum group. For show notes and more episodes, head over to our dedicated website, utilizingtech.com,

or find us on ex Twitter, Mastodon, and hey, maybe Blue Sky at Utilizing Tech. Thanks for listening, and we will catch you next week. Music