AI will be all-flash, hard disks are not fast enough: Everpure CEO

Everpure expects AI to accelerate the shift from hard-disk drives to flash storage, with Charles Giancarlo, Chairman and CEO, saying AI workloads will be “all flash” because traditional disks cannot deliver the speed required for next-generation applications. The company is expanding its push into hyperscale data centres and betting on the reliability, lower power consumption, and smaller footprint of flash technology to drive growth.

Could you highlight some developments you believe are noteworthy?

We’ve become the number one provider of all things flash storage and can now support all our customers’ storage needs, not limited to a product or category. This year, we are the largest investor in data storage from an R&D standpoint. We’ll probably ship as much flash storage as all of our competitors combined, while also growing faster than any other player. Customers need to consider architecting their IT environment differently. For the last 30 years, IT environments have been designed around applications. For agents to be valuable, they need data from different applications.

AI has exposed that it’s impossible to share data with many vendors. We’re introducing a new type of data architecture. With data primacy, as opposed to applications, the data is at the centre. The company now defines the environment, because they define the data. After all, context matters. The other capability we’re introducing is the ability to extract that understanding and embed it with the data, so the data is self-describing.

We want the enterprise to have shared context, which gives it the optionality between the vendors they use to process it and the workflow. Because today, the data is stuck with the vendor, and not the customer.

As you expanding beyond hardware into data management and software, how significant is the revenue contribution from the latter?

It’s still early. Data storage is currently over 90 per cent of our revenue. But if we do a good job of saving our customers’ time, effort, money, and helping them drive their business, we’ll be rewarded. To some extent, this allows customers to have fewer copies of their data, which is better from a labour standpoint since they don’t require as much equipment. More importantly, it reduces their attack surface from a cyber standpoint. If the customers can make better use of their data, we’ll benefit too.

To what extent is the rapid adoption of AI serving as a growth catalyst for Everpure?

There’s no question about it. I believe this new model will cause customers to repatriate their data onto their own premises, because they have to get control of it. This will also benefit us because a lot of it is about data sovereignty, which is often discussed from a geographical standpoint, but also works for corporations since they want to control their data, rather than their application providers being in charge.

How significant is India to Everpure’s global growth strategy?

It’s one of the highest growth areas. We came into India rather late, about 8-10 years ago. Once we started investing in India, from an R&D and sales standpoint, about five years ago, it has grown substantially. Part of the reason is that we were flash only and by far the most expensive then. That’s why it took us longer to enter the market. Indian buyers at that time were much more price sensitive, but this has evolved a lot.

The AI boom is creating massive infrastructure demands, particularly around power and water usage. What is the opportunity for Everpure?

It’s huge. We’re beginning to sell to hyperscalers. Typically, we sell about 6-8 exabytes a year to our enterprise customers. We will sell many times that to the hyperscale customers because 90 per cent of their storage is hard disk. We are less than one-tenth of the power space of a hard disk. It’s incredibly dense and highly efficient storage. Last year, flash had almost the same total cost of ownership as a hard disk, which had been cheaper. This year, however, all the costs have gone up. While we’re better than SSDs, it may take a few more years before we can replace hard disks from a price-performance standpoint.

What are the long-term cost advantages of flash storage compared with traditional storage technologies? What is the rate of adoption?

It’s a lot more reliable and lasts two to three times as long. Hard disks wear out after about five years. We last over 10 years. If hard disks fail at 2-3 per cent a year, we fail at 0.1 per cent a year, or about 25 times less often. It also consumes lower power and space, and that’s not even including the data reduction that we can do.

Today, enterprises are about 55 to 60 per cent flash. Hard disk is now a minority, even though prices are higher now because of the supply chain shortage. The basic costs are lower. So, when the shortage is over, flash prices will be lower than a hard disk. But in cost-sensitive countries like India, there may be a higher proportion of hard disks.

Generally, we consume less than 10 per cent of the floor space than with a hard disk. Compared to our competitors, who use SSDs, we’re usually less than one. AI will be all flash, there’s no question, since a hard disk is just not fast enough for AI.

How has enterprise adoption of flash storage evolved in India?

Tremendously — not just because of the economics, but because it is simpler to operate. Our systems have higher reliability because of modern software. Reliability becomes a cost issue for customers because when their systems are down, they lose revenue. We fail much less often.

As demand for flash storage and AI infrastructure grows, are you hiring more to keep pace?

I never understand companies that think AI will take over their jobs. If you’re growing, you need more people. AI might reduce costs and allow you to do things faster, but it won’t come up with new ways of doing them. We continue to hire and are growing as a company. As we create new areas, we need smart people who understand that environment and can innovate.

The correspondent was in Las Vegas at the invitation of Everpure.