The collaboration will reduce latency and costs, bringing AI inference closer to end users and enhancing new industrial and business applications.
Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ: AKAM), a global leader in cybersecurity and cloud computing, has announced a strategic agreement with VAST Data, a company specializing in data platforms for artificial intelligence, aiming to accelerate the adoption and efficiency of AI inference in Edge environments.
This alliance seeks to address one of the primary challenges for the global expansion of artificial intelligence: latency and scalability. While AI model training takes place in highly controlled and centralized environments, inference — the phase in which models respond to requests from users or devices — needs to operate in real-time, with minimal latency and in distributed locations.
The integration of VAST’s data platform into Akamai’s distributed cloud will allow organizations to securely and consistently access their business data from anywhere in the world. Through a single global namespace, companies will be able to deploy inference workloads wherever they are needed, without solely relying on large centralized data centers, resulting in significant improvements in response times and cost reductions.
“With this agreement, Akamai and VAST Data will deliver next-generation AI infrastructure that combines hyper-scale performance, security, and efficiency,” said Jeff Denworth, co-founder of VAST Data. “Together, we are providing organizations with a data platform ready for the most demanding AI and inference applications, ensuring seamless scalability and intelligent automation.”
Akamai’s cloud, considered the most distributed in the world, includes thousands of nodes globally. This gives it a unique position to deploy AI inference at the Edge, bringing computing closer to where digital interactions truly occur, whether in industrial environments, smart cities, automotive, or financial services.
According to industry estimates, AI inference will generate growing demand for ultra-fast processing in locations close to the end user in the coming years. Akamai and VAST Data anticipate that this trend will transform the way AI applications are developed and consumed, shifting from centralized architectures to hybrid and distributed models.
The agreement reinforces Akamai’s strategy to evolve towards a highly scalable Edge cloud, at a time when traditional infrastructures are beginning to show limitations in meeting the needs of a market that demands real-time and uninterrupted responses.
A solution for key industries
Industries such as automotive, healthcare, Industry 4.0, and entertainment will benefit from this integration, enabling local inference that enhances operational efficiency and user experience. From autonomous driving to industrial monitoring systems or content recommendation on streaming platforms, Edge inference will be key to the immediate future.
According to experts, Akamai and VAST Data’s initiative is a decisive step towards a digital infrastructure prepared for the next wave of artificial intelligence-based applications, with less reliance on remote data centers and greater direct responsiveness at the point of use.