The 25 Hottest Infrastructure And Edge Computing Companies: The 2026 CRN AI 100
As part of CRN’s AI 100, here are 25 infrastructure and edge computing companies helping drive AI innovation.
Behind all the headlines, real and hyped, about data center buildouts, there is a very real trend: Spending on infrastructure for AI is huge. Research firm Gartner in January estimated that worldwide spending is forecast to reach $2.53 trillion in 2026. And of that, the biggest area of spending will be on the infrastructure side.
Gartner estimated that worldwide spending on AI infrastructure alone in 2026 will reach $1.37 trillion, accounting for over 54 percent of total AI spending. That is up nearly 43 percent over spending in 2025 and is expected to grow another 28 percent in 2027.
AI infrastructure and edge computing encompass a wide range of hardware from individual components including CPUs and GPUs to small devices collating data at the edge to massive rack-scale compute and storage systems.
That growth in spending spells opportunity for solution providers that have maintained strong data center practices and are on the forefront of tying the latest in server, storage, networking and other hardware to their customers’ AI and edge buildouts.
CRN has named 25 companies that are vanguards in AI infrastructure and edge computing to its AI 100 2026 list. They include the large systems, storage and networking vendors like Cisco Systems, HPE, Lenovo, Hitachi Vantara, NetApp and Everpure, along with their younger rivals such as Nutanix and Vast Data.
But with all the talk about hardware, AI infrastructure and edge computing also depend heavily on software vendors, including scrappy, fast-growing companies like Cohesity and Veeam Software.
As part of CRN’s AI 100, here are 25 infrastructure and edge computing companies helping drive AI innovation.
Acer
Jason Chen
Chairman, CEO
Acer has become an important AI infrastructure supplier. For edge AI, the Taiwan-based company offers its Acer Veriton GN100 AI Mini workstations powered by Nvidia’s Grace Blackwell GB10 Superchip. It also offers AI-ready desktop and mobile PCs built using Snapdragon X, Intel Core Ultra and AMD Ryzen processors, as well as Acer Intelligence Space, a software-based central hub for intelligent devices.
AMD
Lisa Su
Chair, CEO
AMD offers a large range of technology for building AI infrastructure, including leading CPUs, GPU and other accelerators, and networking components. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company supports this hardware with a wide range of software and developer kits including AMD ROCm libraries and tools for AI and HPC development on AMD GPUs, AMD Vitis AI inference development software, and the AMD ZenDNN library for its EPYC processors.
Cisco Systems
Chuck Robbins
Chair, CEO
Cisco has integrated AI across nearly all of its networking, security and observability portfolios. The San Jose, Calif.-based company provides technology around agentic operations, AI-optimized networking for workloads on a global scale and purpose-built silicon for AI optimization. It also provides a Hybrid Mesh Firewall for zero-trust segmentation, smart networking switches with built-in security, an AI-ready edge platform and the Cisco IQ software.
Cohesity
Sanjay Poonen
President, CEO
Data security and management company Cohesity uses AI extensively throughout its product portfolio, starting with the Cohesity Data Cloud, a secure, AI-driven data resilience platform. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company integrates AI throughout its data security and management products to improve data resilience and threat detection. Cohesity also offers Cohesity Gaia, which allows AI agents to mine value from historical unstructured data.
DDN
Alex Bouzari
Co-Founder, CEO
DDN develops high-performance data storage platforms that can achieve up to 99 percent GPU utilization, allowing businesses to train AI models without bottlenecks and to scale AI from pilot projects to full production. The Chatsworth, Calif.-based company says its AI-native design unifies and accelerates AI pipelines to help maximize performance, reduce costs, and accelerate ROI to help businesses drive AI breakthroughs.
Dell Technologies
Michael Dell
Founder, Chairman, CEO
Data center infrastructure powerhouse Dell has transformed its server and storage business into the foundation of a fast-growing AI empire. This starts with the Dell AI Factory, an end-to-end portfolio of infrastructure, software and services designed to accelerate enterprise AI adoption. The Round Rock, Texas-based company also has a full portfolio of AI-ready servers, PCs, workstations, storage, networking and cyber resilience products.
Everpure
Charles Giancarlo
Chairman, CEO
Everpure, which until early this year was known as Pure Storage, has advanced beyond developing high-performance storage systems to now being a key part of businesses’ AI infrastructure. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company offers a platform that assembles data pipelines and accelerates training and inference with automation and scale and in the process ensures data is AI-ready and accelerated for AI analytics.
Extreme Networks
Ed Meyercord
President, CEO
Extreme Networks develops AI-driven, cloud-managed networking technologies including wired and wireless infrastructure, security and analytics, primarily for enterprises. The Morrisville, N.C.-based company’s Extreme Platform One aims to simplify network operations through a unified platform and secure fabric technology. At the core is Extreme AI, which goes beyond AIOps to accelerate networking, security, procurement, compliance, troubleshooting and more.
F5
François Locoh-Donou
Chairman, President, CEO
The F5 Application Delivery and security Platform from F5, a developer of application delivery, security and performance management, helps enterprises accelerate their AI initiatives while reducing operational overload, complexity and risk. The Seattle-based company integrates high-performance AI delivery, robust AI model security and multi-cloud orchestration into a unified platform to help enterprises rapidly operationalize secure, scalable, AI-driven applications.
Hitachi Vantara
Sheila Rohra
CEO
Hitachi Vantara, known for its high-performance storage and data management technology, also offers AI innovation via Hitachi iQ, the company’s portfolio of infrastructure and offerings to address the AI market, providing best-in-class economics for AI analytics platforms, especially at scale. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company also offers AI-ready storage platforms and an AIOps offering for analytical insight.
HP Inc.
Bruce Broussard
Interim CEO
PC, workstation and printer developer HP has integrated AI across many of its key technologies. Many of the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company’s mobile and desktop PCs come integrated with NPUs for local AI processing, while its latest printers leverage AI to remove unwanted “clutter” or combine multiple pages to improve print formatting. HP also has a line of AI workstations.
HPE
Antonio Neri
President, CEO
Infrastructure giant HPE has a multifaceted approach to AI. Its Nvidia AI Computing by HPE targets simplified AI deployment. The HPE Private Cloud AI, meanwhile, offers a secure AI workbench with a unified data lakehouse and AI models and use cases the Spring, Texas-based company said can be deployed in hours. AI is also infused throughout HPE’s compute, storage, networking and software.
Intel
Lip-Bu Tan
CEO
Intel has made AI a key focus of its processors and software. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company’s Intel Core Ultra processors feature built-in AI engines, including CPU, GPU and NPU, while its enterprise Xeon processors target high-performance AI. It also offers its Gaudi accelerators as an alternative to GPUs, and has its OpenVINO toolkit for optimizing and deploying AI models across various hardware platforms.
Lenovo
Yuanqing Yang
Chairman, CEO
Lenovo offers what it calls its Hybrid AI portfolio. It includes the Lenovo Hybrid AI Factory based on new Lenovo ThinkSystem PCs and ThinkEdge servers for AI inferencing for almost any workloads, along with AI-ready servers and software-defined storage. The company, with U.S. headquarters Morrisville, N.C., also brings AI to the edge with its ThinkEdge compute devices and provides XClarity One for enterprise AIOps.
NetApp
George Kurian
CEO
NetApp is focused on managing data for use by AI compute infrastructures and applications while ensuring the data is ready for AI use. The San Jose, Calif.-based company’s intelligent data platform powers any AI workload with Nvidia DGX SuperPOD-certified performance and scale with intelligent data services. The NetApp AI Data Engine provides a unified, always-current view of data for use with AI.
Nutanix
Rajiv Ramaswami
CEO
Hyperconverged infrastructure technology developer Nutanix provides a cloud operating model targeting AI agents running on AI factories. By abstracting complexity and helping IT decision-makers balance performance, security and cost, the Nutanix Agentic AI technology not only simplifies operations, but also optimizes the economics of AI. The San Jose, Calif.-based company’s Nutanix Enterprise AI provides secure deployment and enterprise controls for LLM endpoints.
Nvidia
Jensen Huang
Co-Founder, CEO
Nvidia and its industry-leading technology is at the heart of AI. In addition to accelerating AI via its GPUs and other components, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company is a major player in AI cloud services; data center and embedded systems technologies; AI components for servers, PCs, storage, workstations and networking; and software and tools that span AI needs of nearly any industry.
Qualcomm
Cristiano Amon
President, CEO
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors are at the heart of many edge devices running agentic AI applications and supported by multiple partners including AnythingLLM, Ollama, memories.ai, NEXA.AI and Paage.ai. The San Diego-based company’s Snapdragon processors bring AI to PCs, smartphones, automobiles, IoT machine learning applications, data center inference applications, networking, extended reality and the edge.
Scale Computing
William Morro
CEO
Scale Computing last year was acquired by Acumera, which then adopted the Scale Computing brand for its entire edge-focused computing, networking, storage and security portfolio. The Indianapolis-based company’s hyperconverged SC//Platform edge offering lets businesses deploy AI workloads and gain predictive analytics via its autonomous management, decentralized AI processing and AI-driven optimization.
StorMagic
Susan Odle
CEO
Hyperconverged infrastructure technology developer StorMagic’s SvHCI software works with any hardware to bring compute, storage, networking and a hypervisor to the edge where it can be deployed to run AI workloads. The Bristol, U.K.-based company also offers SvSAN, a virtual SAN for high availability of data, along with the Edge Control decentralized fleet management tool.
Supermicro
Charles Liang
Founder, Chairman, President, CEO
Supermicro, one of the biggest server and storage manufacturers for businesses or OEM customers, has a very close relationship with Nvidia that it uses to offer one of the largest portfolios of AI-ready servers for inference, training and the edge. The San Jose, Calif.-based company also designs storage systems with performance for feeding GPU-hungry workloads.
Vast Data
Renen Hallak
Co-Founder, CEO
Vast Data defines its AI Operating System as a global data platform that empowers intelligent agents to store, think, communicate and act. The New York-based company’s platform was built to manage the complete AI life cycle and provide a unified foundation for storage, database and compute to help eliminate the need to stitch together multiple tools for training, inference, autonomous agents and more.
Veeam Software
Anand Eswaran
CEO
Data protection and management software developer Veeam, based in Columbus, Ohio, has made AI a key component of much of its technology. Its platform maps all of a company’s data and where it connects across its life cycle including AI; secures data across an entire data estate and AI pipelines; and offers end-to-end safe AI with a context-aware LLM firewall and automated data sanitization.
Weka
Liran Zvibel
Co-Founder, CEO
Weka develops the NeuralMesh storage system, which interconnects data, compute and AI services across any data environment from edge to core to hyperscale clouds and neoclouds to help businesses build dynamic AI factories that run anywhere. Campbell, Calif.-based Weka says NeuralMesh provides an intelligent, adaptive software foundation for enterprise and agentic AI innovation that scales with AI into the future.
Zededa
Said Ouissal
Founder, CEO
The Zededa Edge Intelligence Platform was designed to build, deploy and operate edge intelligence at scale. The San Jose, Calif.-based company says the platform offers proven edge orchestration to orchestrate the full edge AI stack, including autonomous agents, inference and infrastructure, across distributed environments. Workloads run on heterogeneous hardware with centralized control and hardware-based security.