AI Infrastructure Field Day Solidigm Event Summary

1. Getting to know the unsung hero of AI infrastructure with Solidigm

Before we discuss the value of AI as a solution in conjunction with its cost, it helps to lay some groundwork. In our first video Ace Stryker, Director of Market Development at Solidigm, dives into the history of the AI data explosion, along with the value curve and impact of that AI growth. He then looks at the changes in direction that will allow organizations to gain value from AI that outweighs the expense. 

 Items discussed in this section

• ARC AGI benchmark 
• AI Accuracy and model
• Highlights of methods to improve accuracy
• Top impacts to Enterprise adoption of AI
• Every watt and square inch matters
• Who is Solidigm

Ace takes time to ensure the audience understands the value and impact of storage on AI use cases. While most conversations in this space tend to focus on the GPU and the memory requirements, storage has a substantially more valuable role than many architects realize. As we see the advent of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) and further innovations in AI Pipeline, storage value is increasing almost exponentially. Ace closes out this section with a preview of the rest of the event. 

2. AI data solutions are not one size fits all with Solidigm

There is a fine line between standardized solutions, a catch-all, or even general-purpose solutions. In this section Scott Shadley, Director of Leadership Narrative and Evangelist at Solidigm, gives us his spin on this topic, calling out the fact that data solutions are not one size fits all. It’s simply not possible to satisfy every data storage deployment with a single product with today’s infrastructure requirements. Scott discusses the Solidigm portfolio to ensure users are aware of the possible solutions with a little help from AI, a cosmic SSD, and hero ‘lemming’.

Items discussed in the section

• Market dynamics
• Market requirements
• What is the edge in data storage?
• A detailed analysis of edge computing architectures
• Solidigm portfolio overview
• Discussion on history and the future of data storage

Scott spends significant focus on the Solidigm family of products, highlighting the value of the term family. The discussion on workloads and how they map to various products ensures that the audience understands the available solutions. Each solution is created with purpose and function based on customer inputs meeting the needs of the users. Solidigm doesn’t just create a product as a first, best, or only, but to target customer needs. To close out the session Scott discusses the heat generated by storing data and the impacts of the SSD ecosystem.

3. Why storage matters to AI in 2025 with Solidigm

To properly show the value of understanding the ecosystem, the workloads, and the customers, Ace brought in a guest for this section. Steen Graham, Founder and CEO of Metrum AI, provides us with a real-time demonstration of the storage impact to AI solutions. Before the demonstration, Ace started the session with a review and update to the Solidigm AI Pipeline to give the audience a refreshed understanding to better understand the impact of Steen’s demonstration. 

Items discussed in the section

• The Solidigm AI Pipeline
• The impact to accuracy with RAG
• An overview of Metrum AI
• A walkthrough of a Metrum AI and Solidigm study
• A live demo of the work
• A review of the output and discussion on value

Ace and Steen spent a good portion of this section focused on the joint analysis of the storage impact to AI. This required some introduction and background on the path of data in AI use cases, the impacts of changing the different infrastructure pieces, and the costs associated. The ability to showcase this in real-time was hosted by a partner of Solidigm, FarmGPU, who hosted the hardware and where the team ran the software experiments. The session concludes with a showcase of the offloading of work to storage and its empirical value of the work shown. 

4. Industry first SSDs tackle AI challenges with Solidigm

What is better than a two-hour presentation being showcased in parts? An outfit change and change in focus in the event. Scott returns to present some unique innovations from Solidigm that addresses the growth in AI needs. His focus is to lean into partnerships, innovation, and customer-inspired solutions. There have been a lot of technology announcements recently, and while many are trying to be news makers, not as many are really solutions that we need today. It’s a reminder that "if you shine the beacon, they will come running" is not how our market works. 

Items discussed in the session

• New product introduction
• Customer-aligned value
• Innovation at scale
• Partnerships in development
• A discussion on total cost of ownership (TCO)
• Liquid cooling comes to storage

Scott spends time focused on the impact of listening to, working with, and delivering solutions to customers and partners. He focused on the introduction of the 122TB SSD, which can store every movie from the 1990s in 4K, to the impact of a 9 to 1 reduction in space to do it, and included with the release of some cool new technology. This product was announced by Dell Technologies and has been released to their customers on May 28th. proof that the product built was the product needed. To close out the session, Scott showcases the coolest storage in AI, a liquid-cooled SSD solution co-developed and designed with NVIDIA for their next generation GPU platforms. This first-of-its-kind, hot-swappable, liquid-cooled SSD is a great way to end the day, including the wardrobe change from Scott to set the tone. Read more about it in this article: Introducing the Solidigm Fully Liquid-Cooled SSD Solution.

Conclusion

At the end of the event, a few things happened that can also highlight the value of this work. Solidigm got to spend time off camera with the in-room delegates for a more detailed and reactive discussion. This effort allowed Solidigm to expound on our best-in-class solutions, history, experience, and partnerships. The event lives on through the replay, along with information sharing around the information presented.