Singapore – Pure Storage and Cisco have introduced a new FlashStack Cisco Validated Design (CVD) platform, expanding the range of AI PODs within the Cisco Secure AI Factory with NVIDIA.
The collaboration combines compute, storage, networking and software into a single, integrated platform designed to help enterprises transition from small-scale AI pilots to full-scale production environments.
The initiative aims to address one of the main obstacles to enterprise AI adoption—the readiness and management of data. Many organisations have progressed beyond proof-of-concept stages, developing large language models, retrieval-augmented generation systems and sector-specific AI applications. However, fragmented data infrastructures and limited visibility have hindered progress towards operational deployment.
“Too often, enterprises focuse on GPUs and compute power, but without reliable data, the model never reaches its potential,” Maciej Kranz, GM of enterprise at Pure Storage, commented.
“Our collaboration removes these data barriers, giving customers the performance, simplicity, and efficiency they need to operationalise AI.”
The new FlashStack CVD seeks to overcome various limitations by providing an architecture that supports both structured and unstructured data for AI workloads. Built on Pure Storage’s Enterprise Data Cloud, it offers high-speed data access, concurrency and energy efficiency through the FlashBlade//S platform.
At the core of the partnership is an integrated AI factory framework that combines Pure Storage’s FlashBlade//S for scalable data management, Cisco’s UCS C845a servers with NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 GPUs for accelerated computing, and NVIDIA AI Enterprise software for building and deploying AI at scale.
This combined infrastructure provides enterprises with a consistent, production-grade environment to support use cases such as retrieval-augmented generation, agentic AI, semantic search, video analytics and code generation.
“With this new FlashStack CVD, we’re not just validating hardware, we’re orchestrating all the elements of RAG into an AI-ready infrastructure,” Jeremy Foster, SVP & GM at Cisco Compute, stated.
“This removes complexity and reduces the risks so customers can focus on turning data insights that drive strategic outcomes.”
The validated solution also integrates Cisco’s Nexus 9000 series networking to deliver a low-latency and congestion-aware environment required for AI operations. Features such as telemetry, adaptive routing and per-packet load balancing are intended to ensure efficient communication between compute, storage and GPU resources. IT administrators are also able to manage these environments with unified visibility and governance through Cisco NX-OS and the Nexus Dashboard.
This collaboration reflects Cisco and Pure Storage’s commitment to streamlining data processes and simplifying the path from experimentation to scalable and reliable AI deployment.
