Emerging Data Center And System Vendors To Know In 2022

Data centers, and the servers and processors that power them, remain the heart of many IT environments. Here are 10 startups solution providers should know who are developing leading-edge technologies in data center infrastructure, servers and processors.

The New Generation Of Data Center And System Companies

Many of the startups generating buzz today are developing leading-edge technologies in such areas as cloud computing, big data, cybersecurity and other fast-growing segments of the IT industry.

But core data center and system technologies, including servers and processors, are all the more important today for powering all that wiz-bang IT. All that highly advanced AI software, cool cloud applications and sophisticated big data tools won’t run by themselves. They need next-generation hardware platforms and other IT infrastructure to operate.

No surprise, then, that numerous startups continue to push the envelope in such technologies as CPUs and universal microprocessors, analytical processors, hyperconverged infrastructure, AI hardware, system connectivity and advanced switching – all critical for improving the performance of IT environments overall and data center systems in particular.

As part of CRN’s Emerging Vendors for 2022, here’s a look at 10 data center and system startups (founded in 2016 or later) that are developing technologies that solution providers can use to build solutions that help their customers tackle their biggest IT and data challenges.

*Ampere Computing

*Astera Labs

*ComputerVault

*NeuroBlade

*Pliops

*SambaNova Systems

*Speedata

*Tachyum

*Ventana Micro Systems

*Xsight Labs

Ampere Computing

Founded: 2017

Top Executive: Renee James, Founder and CEO

Ampere Computing develops 64-bit, cloud-native ARM microprocessors for cloud infrastructure servers, specifically designed to handle hyperscale cloud and edge computing workloads and applications.

In December Ampere acquired AI technology startup OnSpecta in a move to strengthen its Ampere Altra performance with AI inference applications.

In April Ampere, based in Santa Clara, Calif., signaled its intention to become a public company, filing a draft registration statement on a confidential basis with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed IPO.

Website: https://amperecomputing.com/

Astera Labs

Founded: 2016

Top Executive: Jitendra Mohan, Co-Founder and CEO

Astera develops purpose-built connectivity technology for distributing data and resolving performance bottlenecks within data-centric systems.

In April Astera, headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., opened a new research and development design center in Markham, Ont., to take advantage of the engineering talent in the greater Toronto area.

Website: https://www.asteralabs.com/

ComputerVault

Founded: 2019

Top Executive: Peo Nathan, Founder and CEO

ComputerVault develops a single platform solution that provides virtual desktops and servers, hyper-converged infrastructure, virtual networking and software-defined WAN capabilities – all with built-in cybersecurity.

Lenovo is both an OEM partner and master reseller of ComputerVault software. ComputerVault also has an OEM partnership with Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

ComputerVault recently moved into a new headquarters in Worcester, Mass.

Website: https://www.computervault.com/

NeuroBlade

Founded: 2018

Top Executive: Elad Sity, Co-Founder and CEO

NeuroBlade develops its Xiphos compute-in-memory systems and related analytics software that are designed to accelerate analytical workloads that process huge volumes of data. The Xiphos appliance is built around the company’s Intense Memory Processing Unit with each IMPU containing thousands of parallel processors.

NeuroBlabe, based in Tel Aviv, Israel, raised $83 million in Series B funding in October 2021.

Website: https://www.neuroblade.com/

Pliops

Founded: 2017

Top Executive: Uri Beitler, Founder and CEO

The Pliops XDP “extreme data processors” manage data as it flows between applications and storage. The technology boosts workload scalability and data capacity by delivering high-performance drive fail protection and in-line compression for NVMe SSD-based data-intensive applications.

Pliops, headquartered in San Jose, Calif., raised $65 million in a round of funding in early 2021.

Website: https://pliops.com/

SambaNova Systems

Founded: 2017

Top Executive: Ridrigo Liang, Co-Founder and CEO

SambaNova Systems develops its Data Scale AI hardware and integrated systems and Dataflow-as-a-Service software-defined platform to run AI and deep learning applications from the data center to the cloud.

Based in Palo Alto, Calif., SambaNova Systems raised $676 million in Series D funding in April 2021, boosting the company’s valuation beyond $5 billion.

Website: https://sambanova.ai/

Speedata

Founded: 2019

Top Executive: Jonathan Friedmann, Co-Founder and CEO

Speedata exited stealth in September 2021, debuting its Analytics Processing Unit (APU) chip technology for accelerating database and data analytics workloads. The processors provide a two-fold magnitude or more performance boost over mainstream processors for database and business analytics processes, according to the company

Based in Netanya, Israel, Speedata announced $55 million in Series A funding at the company’s public launch, following an earlier $15 million seed funding round.

Website: https://www.speedata.de/en/

Tachyum

Founded: 2016

Top Executive: Radoslav Danilak, Co-Founder and CEO

Tachyum’s Prodigy universal processor integrates the functionality of CPUs, GPUs and TPUs (tensor processing units), providing high performance for AI and compute-intensive applications while improving energy consumption, server utilization and space efficiency

On June 1 the Las Vegas-based company said it would begin assembling a limited number of Tachyum Prodigy Evaluation Platform servers with Prodigy processors, memory and application software.

Website: https://www.tachyum.com/

Ventana Micro Systems

Founded: 2018

Top Executive: Balaji Baktha, Co-Founder and CEO

Ventana is developing a line of data center-class, high-performance RISC-V CPU cores and compute subsystems. The company’s CPUs will have extensible instruction set capability delivered in the form of multi-core chiplets or core IP for high-performance applications in the cloud, enterprise data centers, 5G, edge computing, AI and ML, and automotive markets.

Ventana, headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., raised $38 million in funding in September 2021.

Website: https://www.ventanamicro.com/

Xsight Labs

Founded: 2017

Top Executive: Guy Koren, Co-Founder and CEO

Xsight Labs plans to upend the data center switch market with a super-fast, programmable switch the company said can meet the power and performance demands of cloud, high-performance computing and AI applications while also providing a flexible and scalable architecture.

Xsight Labs is currently sampling its X1 product, which the company says is the industry’s first 25.6 terabits per second and 12.8 terabits per second data center switch with 100G SerDes (serializer/deserializer). The company says the X1 is also the industry’s lowest power, fully programmable data center switch to operate at those speeds.

The Kiryat Gat, Israel-based company exited stealth in late 2020 and closed a Series D round of funding in March 2021.

Website: https://xsightlabs.com/