Pure Storage takes AI Ready Infrastructure to new levels

Pure Storage is focused on building a better world with data – and transforming the landscape of enterprise storage in the process.

Pure’s data solutions enable SaaS companies, cloud service providers, and enterprise and public sector customers to deliver real-time, secure data to power their mission-critical production, DevOps, and modern analytics environments in a multi-cloud environment.

Disrupting the sleepy storage industry and challenging the status quo with new ideas, combining innovative technology, and a laser focus on customer success has allowed it to grow at a phenomenal rate.

AMEinfo met with Patrick Smith, EMEA Field CTO, Pure Storage ahead of the company’s participation at Gitex 2018.

Smith, a career financial services professional, was most recently a customer of Pure Storage, and personally experienced the technology.

“Pure has been a key disruptor in the storage industry, constantly trying to challenge the status quo, not just with innovative tech but also with its business model,” says Smith.

“The key part of Pure’s differentiation is customer success and value offering to our customers.”

Pure storage is leading in storage for AI and machine learning with AI Ready Infrastructure (A.I.R.I) and A.I.R.I. Mini, the industry’s first infrastructure built to get AI projects up and running rapidly.

AI Ready Infrastructure

To begin with a few stats: By 2020, every human will generate 1.7MB of data per second, and according to IDC, spending on data-intensive AI systems in the Middle East & Africa (MEA) region will grow at a CAGR of 32% between 2016 and 2021, reaching $114.22 million in 2021.

Today, 81% of CEOs believe that AI is very important for their business, up from 54% in 2016, the biggest jump in any survey category by Fortune500 Annual CEO Survey.

“AI Ready Infrastructure is really aimed at customers who need to deliver their AI strategy in a simple and time efficient manner,” explains Smith.

“Instead of collecting different tech and trying to construct them in their own datacenter, A.I.R.I. really allows companies to purchase, compute, store and high performance, and really deliver on time-to-market.”

Smith says that global customers using Pure solutions are commonly in verticals like healthcare, finance, and automotive industries.

While in automotive AI is playing a big role in smart autonomous driving, the data-heavy healthcare and finance sectors use AI to access vast data sets that have accumulated over time, allowing enterprises to process records in efficient, productive and creative ways.

“Data has absolute value. And we need to extract it.”

Looking at HD cameras in a factory or warehouse, AI can be used for image recognition to improve quality control or to perform inventory management. Also in the medical field, AI can be used for image recognition for pre-screening X-Ray and MRI images.

In the insurance industry, as another example, AI can help with estimate analysis on claims, where for instance a picture of a crashed car or other property damage can be run in near real-time against the company’s database of damage photos to give an instant estimate for a claim payout, all without having to send a person out to assess the damage.

“When talking ROI for using AI, the customer is not focused on cost or tech for the sake of tech, but rather looking at creating added value to the business by using data as a way to generate new business lines.”

Smith says the process starts by understanding what AI is, then developing a strategy, and then evaluation through concept deployment.

One of the big myths is will AI do away with jobs?

“Our research showed that 83% of global respondents (85% of MEA respondents) believe that humans will always be necessary to interpret the data,” data from Pure Storage shows.

Gitex presents an opportunity for the company to showcase its range of data-centric architecture helping organizations simplify production, empower developers, and deliver next-gen analytics.

“2018 has been a year of progress for us in the Middle East—we expanded the local team, signed up key channel partners and most importantly, expanded our customer base, particularly in the banking, financial services, and insurance sector,” concludes Smith.

Source ameinfo

Industry: Artificial Intelligence / AI News