VAST Data, known for its AI Operating System (AI OS), has announced a strengthened collaboration with Google Cloud. This partnership allows customers to implement the VAST AI OS as a fully managed service, facilitating a unified global namespace that seamlessly integrates hybrid environments.
This advancement, driven by the VAST DataSpace, enables businesses to link clusters hosted on Google Cloud with those at on-premises locations, thus eliminating the need for cumbersome migrations and permitting immediate data availability for AI operations.
Addressing fragmented storage and siloed pipelines
VAST Data seeks to resolve this issue by transforming data placement into a strategic decision
Many enterprises face challenges with fragmented storage and isolated data pipelines, which can hinder the consistent, high-speed access required by AI accelerators. VAST Data seeks to resolve this issue by transforming data placement into a strategic decision instead of a logistical hurdle.
Through a demonstration, VAST showed the capability of the VAST DataSpace to connect clusters spanning over 10,000 kilometres, from the United States to Japan. This setup allows for smooth, near real-time access to data in different locations while supporting intelligent workload distribution across varying hardware such as TPUs in the US and GPUs in Japan.
Fully managed AI OS experience
Jeff Denworth, Co-Founder at VAST Data, explained the benefits: “Through our partnership with Google Cloud, we’re meeting customers where they are by delivering a fully managed AI OS.”
This system utilises VAST's global namespace coupled with intelligent streaming, providing Google Cloud customers with the ability to deploy a VAST-managed cluster via Google Cloud Marketplace rapidly.
This involves integrated governance, billing, flexible scaling options, and supports hybrid cloud missions—all managed by VAST to make enterprise data instantly usable for various workloads.
Enhancing digital transformation
The integration with Google Cloud TPUs facilitates a seamless data access experience
Nirav Mehta, Vice President, Compute Platform at Google Cloud, elaborated on the collaboration: “Bringing VAST AI Operating System to Google Cloud Marketplace will help customers quickly deploy, manage, and grow the data solution on Google Cloud's trusted global infrastructure.”
The integration with Google Cloud TPUs facilitates a seamless data access experience, nearing local disk speeds, and confirms the VAST AI OS's efficiency in optimising AI pipelines and maintaining steady performance even during initial data loads.
Advanced platform capabilities
Subramanian Kartik, Chief Scientist at VAST Data, emphasised the system's advancements: “The VAST AI OS is redefining what it means to move fast in AI. Loading models at speeds comparable to local NVMe while delivering a full suite of advanced platform features.”
This approach can transform passive accelerators into active intelligence, leading to greater efficiency and quicker insights for diverse AI tasks.
Optimising AI deployment and cost efficiency
With VAST's system, organisations can now deploy AI workloads on Google Cloud seamlessly
With VAST's system, organisations can now deploy AI workloads on Google Cloud seamlessly, reducing the need for extended migration plans or compliance processes.
By streaming only essential data subsets, it is possible to minimise data movement costs, directly supporting AI innovations in fields like genomics and financial services.
Unified platform for flexible data placement
The VAST AI Operating System’s capabilities allow organisations to strategically choose which data to migrate, replicate, or cache, while ensuring consistent governance throughout. This unified platform facilitates diverse AI solutions without necessitating pipeline overhauls, further enhanced by support for various access protocols.
VAST's services are now readily deployable on Google Cloud, with joint validation and reference materials available for qualified customers and partners, enabling the establishment of a VAST DataSpace across various environments.
VAST Data, the AI Operating System company, announced an expanded partnership with Google Cloud, enabling customers to deploy the VAST AI Operating System (AI OS) as a fully managed service and extend a unified global namespace across hybrid environments.
Powered by the VAST DataSpace, enterprises can seamlessly connect clusters running in Google Cloud and on-premises locations, eliminating complex migrations and making data instantly available wherever AI runs.
Fragmented storage and siloed data pipelines
Enterprises want to run AI where it performs best, but data rarely lives in one place and migrating can take months and costs millions.
Fragmented storage and siloed data pipelines make it hard to feed the AI accelerators with consistent, high-throughput access and every environment change multiplies governance and compliance burdens.
VAST DataSpace to connect clusters
VAST and Google Cloud address this challenge by making data placement a choice rather than a constraint. In this recorded demonstration, VAST showcased the power of the VAST DataSpace to connect clusters across more than 10,000 kilometres, linking one in the United States with another in Japan.
This configuration delivered seamless, near real-time access to the same data in both locations while running inference workloads with vLLM, enabling intelligent workload placement so organisations can run AI models on TPUs in the US and GPUs in Japan without duplicating data or managing separate environments.
Fully managed AI OS
“Through our partnership with Google Cloud, we’re meeting customers where they are by delivering a fully managed AI OS,” said Jeff Denworth, Co-Founder at VAST Data.
“When leveraging our global namespace with intelligent streaming, Google Cloud customers can auto-deploy a VAST-managed cluster via Google Cloud Marketplace and start production in minutes, providing integrated governance and billing, elastic scale, and supporting the hybrid cloud mission – and it’s all handled by VAST, making enterprise data instantly usable for agentic workloads.”
Digital transformation journeys
“Bringing VAST AI Operating System to Google Cloud Marketplace will help customers quickly deploy, manage, and grow the data solution on Google Cloud's trusted, global infrastructure," said Nirav Mehta, Vice President, Compute Platform at Google Cloud.
“VAST can now securely scale and support customers on their digital transformation journeys.”
Powering Google Cloud TPUs with data access and near-local version
Recent performance results also show how the VAST AI Operating System connects seamlessly to Google Cloud Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) virtual machines, integrating directly with Google Cloud’s platform for large-scale AI.
In testing with Meta’s Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct model, the VAST AI Operating System delivered model load speeds on par with local NVMe disks, while maintaining predictable performance during cold starts. These results confirm that the VAST AI OS is not just a data platform but a performance engine designed to keep accelerators fully utilised and AI pipelines continuously in motion.
Advanced platform features
“The VAST AI OS is redefining what it means to move fast in AI. Loading models at speeds comparable to local NVMe while delivering a full suite of advanced platform features,” said Subramanian Kartik, Chief Scientist at VAST Data.
“This is the kind of acceleration that turns idle accelerators into active intelligence, driving higher efficiency and faster time to insight for every AI workload.”
With VAST on Google Cloud, customers can benefit
- Deploy AI in Minutes, Not Months: Organisations can run production AI workloads on Google Cloud today against existing on-premises datasets without migration planning, transfer delays, or extended compliance cycles. Using VAST DataSpace and intelligent streaming, they can present a consistent global namespace of data across on-prem and Google Cloud instantly.
- Reduce Data-Movement Costs: Stream only the subsets that models require to avoid full replication and reduce egress – cutting footprint and redirecting budget from data movement to AI innovation with infrastructure that is future-ready for the demanding AI pipelines in genomics, structural biology, and financial services.
- Maximise Google Cloud Innovation with Flexible Data Placement: Choose what to migrate, replicate, or cache to Google Cloud while keeping one namespace and consistent governance by applying unified access controls, audit, and retention policies everywhere to simplify compliance and reduce operational risk. Leverage VAST DataStore and VAST DataBase to unify prep, training, inference, and analytics without rewiring pipelines.
- TPU-Ready Data Path: Feed TPU VMs over validated NFS paths with optimised model-load and small-file/metadata-aware I/O, achieving warm-start load times on par with local NVMe while maintaining predictable, steady behaviour during cold-starts.
- Build on a Unified Platform: The VAST AI Operating System delivers a DataStore, DataBase, InsightEngine, AgentEngine and DataSpace that scales across on-premises and Google Cloud environments and adapts to changing business needs without architectural rewrites, enabling data scientists to use a variety of access protocols with a single solution.
VAST can be deployed today in Google Cloud. Joint validation and reference guidance for establishing a VAST DataSpace spanning Google Cloud and external clusters are available to qualified customers and partners.
