(Picture courtesy VAST Information)
It’s not every single day that you simply see a brand new working system launched. However VAST Information as we speak claims to have completed precisely that with the launch of what it’s calling a brand new working system for AI. The VAST AI Working System builds on the corporate’s current knowledge and AI infrastructure developments and provides clients the power to construct and run AI purposes utilizing their very own knowledge.
VAST Information says we want a brand new working system as a result of we’re on the “daybreak of a brand new computing paradigm.” Simply because the PC, cellular, and cloud revolutions gave us new abstractions of complexity, the brand new agentic AI world calls for a brand new software program layer to democratize using new {hardware}.
The period of deep studying has created the necessity for a brand new working system that may remodel AI infrastructure into “easy to make use of and scalable machines,” VAST Co-founder Jeff Denworth says in a video launched as we speak.
“To us it’s grow to be abundantly clear that the methods by which deep studying workloads are computing look completely nothing just like the enterprise techniques of yesterday,” Denworth says. “We’re shortly shifting to an age the place there can be tens of millions of GPUs and each conventional system will break below the load of this computing energy as a result of they had been by no means designed for this scale and this depth.”
(Picture courtesy VAST Information)
The VAST crew has been constructing out its knowledge platform since Denworth, Renen Hallak, and Shachar Fienblit, co-founded the corporate a few decade in the past. VAST took a clean-sheet method to constructing its platform round NVMe drives utilizing its Disaggregated and Shared The whole lot, or DASE, idea.
The primary component of the brand new DASE method with VAST Information Platform was the VAST DataStore, which offers massively scalable object and file storage for structured and unstructured knowledge. Subsequent was the DataBase, which features as a desk retailer and offers knowledge lakehouse performance just like Apache Iceberg. Then it launched the DataEngine, which offers the aptitude to execute features on knowledge. Subsequent got here DataSpace, which offers a worldwide namespace for storing, retrieving, and processing knowledge from the cloud to the sting.
In October, the New York firm unveiled the InsightEngine, which makes use of Nvidia Inference Microservices (NIMs) from Nvidia and was the primary new software designed to run atop the platform. In early 2025, the corporate introduced help for block storage and real-time occasion streaming by way of an Apache Kafka-compatible API. In April the corporate added a number of GenAI capabilities, together with help for vector search and retrieval; serverless triggers and features; and fine-grained entry management.
VAST Co-Founder Jeff Denworth
At the moment’s launch of the VAST Working System for AI hinges on the launch of another piece of the puzzle (what we surmise is a vital piece, since its inclusion allows VAST to have what it claims is a wholly new working system). That new element is named the VAST AgentEngine.
In accordance with VAST, the AgentEngine options an “AI agent instrument server” that permits brokers to invoke knowledge, metadata, features, and execute Net searches, or name different brokers utilizing Mannequin Context Protocol (MCP), an rising customary for agentic AI created by Anthropic in late 2024. Brokers can assume completely different personas and sort out completely different duties utilizing completely different safety credentials, VAST says, whereas scheduling and tracing mechanisms present for environment friendly activity completion and resiliency.
VAST says it can launch one open supply AI agent per 30 days to run on its AI OS. A number of the examples of brokers embody: a reasoning chatbot; a knowledge engineering agent; a immediate engineer; an “agent agent” to assist work with and enhance different agent; a compliance agent; an editor agent; and a life sciences agent to assist with analysis.
(Picture courtesy VAST Information)
Each technological revolution began with new {hardware} and finally led to new working techniques, VAST CEO and Co-founder Hallak says. As an illustration, the PC revolution gave us Home windows and Mac OS, the Web revolution gave us networking protocols and the Net browser, whereas cellular computing gave us Android and iOS.
“It’s the working system, agnostic to the {hardware} beneath and purposes above, which defines these revolutions and create essentially the most worth by democratizing new {hardware} and software adoption,” Hallak says in a video posted as we speak. “AI will dwarf the entire earlier computing brokers in each dimension and velocity.”
“Within the Nineteen Seventies, solely pc scientists may function computer systems. With Home windows everybody may,” he says. “At the moment we’re at that very same inflection level with respect to AI. Whoever builds the AI working system will democratize AI by making it easy, by making it safe, and by making it accessible to everybody.”
Associated Gadgets:
VAST Fleshes Out Information Platform for Enterprise RAG Use Instances
VAST Information Expands Platform With Block Storage And Actual-Time Occasion Streaming
VAST Appears Inward, Outward for An AI Edge
