What SmartX does

SmartX (Beijing Zhiling Haina Technology Co., Ltd., 北京志凌海纳科技股份有限公司) is a privately held Chinese enterprise cloud infrastructure company founded in 2013 and headquartered in Beijing. The company develops and sells self-developed hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) software, distributed block storage, and adjacent cloud infrastructure products, positioning itself as a domestic alternative to VMware and Nutanix with particular strength in China Xinchuang/innovation transformation projects. Per IDC, SmartX has been the #1 vendor in China's HCI software market for three consecutive years (2023-2025) with 36% market share and is also #2 in the full-stack HCI container management scenario at 21.2%.

The company's core technology stack is fully self-developed: SMTX OS is the HCI platform, ZBS is an LSM-based distributed block storage filesystem that directly manages bare disks across x86 servers, ELF is a KVM-based virtualization platform, IOMesh is a Kubernetes-native distributed storage product, SKS is a Kubernetes service, CloudTower provides multi-cluster management, Everoute provides software-defined networking and security, and SMTX Halo bundles the software into pre-configured appliances. Core product code autonomy exceeds 95%, validated by the China Electronics Technology Standardization Institute, and the stack supports both Kunpeng and Haiguang chip platforms. The portfolio was rebranded under the Sunmao (榫卯) umbrella in 2025 and extended with an AI Platform enterprise edition in March 2026. The company is a CNCF Silver member and its IOMesh product is China's first Red Hat OpenShift-certified storage.

SmartX sells through a direct enterprise field sales force supplemented by a channel partner program (SmartX Partner Center) and a technology ecosystem partner program. The revenue model combines perpetual and subscription software licenses for SMTX OS and ZBS, hardware appliance sales via SMTX Halo, and recurring annual service and support fees bundled with both licensing models. Perpetual licenses carry a minimum 3-year initial service commitment. Customers span 2,000+ large and medium-sized enterprises with 30,000+ deployment nodes, concentrated in financial services (450+ institutions including banks, securities, insurance, futures, funds, trusts), manufacturing (180+), healthcare, government, education, transportation, and energy. Strategic partnerships include Tencent Cloud, China Electronics Technology Kbase, Red Hat, Zerto, YAXIN Security, Dingjie Software, and Ctrip Digital Technology.

Name

SmartX

Legal name

北京志凌海纳科技股份有限公司

Website

https://smartx.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2015

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

SmartX is a Beijing-based private vendor of self-developed hyper-converged infrastructure, distributed block storage, and Kubernetes-native storage software. It serves 2,000+ large and medium-sized enterprises in China, primarily in financial services, manufacturing, and healthcare, as a domestic VMware/Nutanix alternative with 95%+ code autonomy.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Software

NAICS

Software Publishers (5132), Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151), Computer and Peripheral Equipment Manufacturing (33411)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373), Computer Storage Devices (3572)

akta.pro primary industry

HCI & Integrated Systems (Compute + Storage) (HDABADAD)

akta.pro secondary industries

Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) Appliances (HDACABAD), Virtualization & Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) Management (HDABABAB), Hybrid Cloud Compute & Virtualization Stack (HCI/VMs/Kubernetes) (HDABAMAF)

Keywords

• Hyper-converged infrastructure
• Distributed block storage
• Server virtualization software
• Enterprise cloud platform
• Kubernetes-native storage

Headquarters

HQ city

Beijing

HQ country

China

HQ region

Asia

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Supply Chain

Revenue model

1. Software Licenses (Permanent and Subscription): SmartX sells SMTX OS hyperconverged software and SMTX ZBS distributed storage with both perpetual license and subscription models. Perpetual licenses include software with annual service fees (minimum 3-year initial commitment); subscription licenses include software and services billed annually (minimum 1-year term). Software is non-permanent for subscription mode.
2. Hyperconverged Appliances (SMTX Halo): SmartX sells pre-configured SMTX Halo hyperconverged appliances and storage appliances bundling the SMTX OS software with validated server hardware configurations. Hardware appliances provide additional revenue alongside software licenses.
3. Professional Services and Support: Annual service and support fees are a component of both perpetual and subscription license models. Services include remote technical support, on-site services, maintenance queries, and proactive inspections. Service is a recurring revenue component tied to software licenses.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels9 records

Core offering

SmartX develops and sells hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) software, distributed block storage, server virtualization, Kubernetes management, software-defined networking, and backup/recovery products that together form its Sunmao enterprise cloud platform. Offerings are sold as perpetual or subscription software licenses and as pre-configured SMTX Halo appliances, targeting large and medium-sized enterprises in financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, government, and other sectors as a domestic alternative to VMware and Nutanix.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• 榫卯 (Sunmao): Enterprise cloud platform product line including 超融合 (HCI), 分布式存储 (distributed storage), and AI platform
• SMTX OS
• SMTX ELF
• SMTX ZBS / 榫卯分布式存储
• SMTX Kubernetes Service (SKS)
• IOMesh
• CloudTower
• Everoute
• SMTX Halo
• Virtink
• knest

Products and services

• SMTX OS (榫卯超融合 / Sunmao HCI) SmartX's flagship hyper-converged infrastructure software, combining compute, storage, networking, and management in a unified platform that supports both SmartX ELF and VMware ESXi virtualization. Sold as perpetual license (Basic ≤5 nodes; Standard ≤16 nodes) or annual subscription to enterprises seeking to replace VMware or build private cloud on any compatible x86 hardware.
• SMTX ZBS (榫卯分布式存储) Self-developed distributed block storage software using an LSM-based filesystem that directly manages bare disks, pools SSD and HDD resources across x86 servers, and provides replica-based data protection. Sold as standalone storage software and bundled with SMTX OS to support virtualization, databases, and core production workloads.
• SMTX ELF Enterprise-grade server virtualization platform built on KVM, serving as SmartX's native hypervisor for the SMTX OS hyper-converged stack. Supports live migration, high availability, and is positioned as a VMware alternative with 95%+ code autonomy.
• CloudTower Unified multi-cluster management platform for SMTX OS and SMTX ZBS, providing centralized monitoring, policy configuration, and lifecycle management across multiple data centers.
• Everoute Software-defined networking and security product providing distributed firewall, micro-segmentation, and zero-trust security for virtualized and Kubernetes workloads in the SmartX stack.
• SMTX Kubernetes Service (SKS) Production-grade Kubernetes cluster management platform built on SmartX HCI, enabling one-stop creation and lifecycle management of Kubernetes clusters with support for both virtualized and bare-metal environments. CNCF Kubernetes-consistency-certified.
• IOMesh Kubernetes-native enterprise distributed storage product with containerized deployment, Kubernetes Operator for lifecycle management, and CSI integration. Community Edition is free; Enterprise Edition supports up to 255 nodes per cluster and is Red Hat OpenShift-certified.
• SMTX Halo Hyper-Converged Appliance Pre-configured hyper-converged appliances bundling SMTX OS software with validated server hardware, enabling one-hour cluster deployment and serving as an alternative to software-only licensing for customers wanting turnkey infrastructure.
• SMTX Halo Storage Appliance Pre-configured storage appliance bundling SMTX ZBS distributed storage software with validated server hardware for customers seeking turnkey distributed block storage.
• SMTX Backup and Recovery Native disaster recovery software for SMTX OS and SMTX ZBS providing replication, recovery, continuous data protection, and asynchronous disaster recovery supporting RPO ≥ 15 minutes and minute-level RTO.
• Sunmao Enterprise AI Platform (榫卯AI平台企业版) Enterprise-grade AI infrastructure platform for deploying and operating AI models and applications, providing ModelOps, MaaS out-of-the-box LLM services, and AI Agent capabilities built on SmartX HCI. Supports HCI-based virtualization deployments for 14B–70B models and SKS bare-metal Kubernetes for larger models including 671B.
• SmartX Enterprise Cloud Platform (榫卯企业云平台) Sunmao-branded integrated enterprise cloud platform combining SmartX's HCI, distributed storage, Kubernetes, networking/security, and AI infrastructure into a unified offering for private cloud and digital transformation scenarios.

Quantifiable outcome

• 3-year TCO reduction of 14-41% (avg 25% savings) vs traditional architecture for mid-size data center deployments; 5-year TCO reduction of 25% vs traditional architecture and 17% vs public cloud
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers13 records

Segments8 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration11 records

AI capability5 records

Feature8 records

Partnerships

Nine partnerships are on record, tiered minor and core.

• 亚信安全 (YAXIN Security)minorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 April 2026SmartX and YAXIN Security jointly released an agentless security protection solution for enterprise cloud environments. Through deep API integration at management, signaling, and data layers, YAXIN Security capabilities are natively embedded in SmartX's enterprise cloud platform, solving the pain point of separated infrastructure and security function management.
• 电科金仓 (China Electronics Technology Group Kbase)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 March 2026SmartX and China Electronics Technology Group Kbase (电科金仓) jointly launched a database full lifecycle management solution. Through standardized API integration, the solution achieves unified orchestration between SmartX's CloudTower management platform and KEMCC (Kbase Enterprise Management and Control Center). The joint solution addresses database deployment, management, and operations for enterprise customers.
• 中旅数科 (Ctrip Digital Technology)minorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 February 2026SmartX and Ctrip Digital Technology (中旅数科) formally signed a strategic cooperation agreement, establishing a 'National Innovation Adaptation Joint Laboratory' to jointly empower Xinchuang/innovation transformation for state-owned enterprises and cultural/tourism industries in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
• 鼎捷软件 (Dingjie Software)minorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting Partner · 1 January 2026SmartX partnered with Dingjie Software to launch a manufacturing industry one-stop solution integrating Dingjie ERP, MES, PLM and other enterprise software with SmartX hyperconverged infrastructure and distributed storage, enabling 'software + infrastructure hardware' integrated delivery for manufacturing customers.
• Tencent Cloud (腾讯云)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 14 November 2025SmartX and Tencent Cloud formed a strategic partnership to jointly build a lightweight, decoupled enterprise cloud ecosystem. The partnership integrates SmartX's hyperconverged infrastructure and distributed storage capabilities with Tencent Cloud's cloud platform services, aiming to create an open and win-win enterprise cloud ecosystem in China.
• 国泰君安证券 (Guotai Junan Securities)minorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 August 2023SmartX and Guotai Junan Securities established a strategic partnership for joint exploration of hyperconverged infrastructure, cloud-native, and Xinchuang transformation in financial services.
• CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 October 2021SmartX became a CNCF Silver member, contributing to cloud-native technology development. IOMesh joined the CNCF Cloud Native Landscape, and SKS passed CNCF Kubernetes consistency certification. SmartX contributes to advancing containers, storage, and networking cloud-native technologies.
• Red Hat (红帽)coreTechnology or Integration · 29 September 2021SmartX IOMesh became China's first storage product to receive Red Hat OpenShift certification. IOMesh is listed in the Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog and can be deployed via the OperatorHub marketplace. This enables OpenShift users to deploy IOMesh for container persistent storage through the Operator installation workflow, providing production-grade high-performance and reliable persistent storage for stateful applications.
• 51% Club / TWT CommunityminorGTM or Marketing Partner · 25 June 2021SmartX participated as a core co-creation vendor in the 2021 Container Cloud Skills Competition jointly hosted by Red Hat and TWT (Tiger & Dragon Team) community. SmartX contributed IOMesh technical content, product resources, expert support, and participated in building the container cloud platform maturity model standard.

Scale indicators11 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Nutanix: Global leader in hyper-converged infrastructure software, directly comparable to SmartX's SMTX OS. Both target enterprise workloads (databases, VDI, private cloud) with software-defined compute + storage on x86 hardware, and SmartX is benchmarked alongside Nutanix in Gartner's Full-Stack HCI Market Guide.
• Sangfor Technologies: Direct China HCI competitor listed alongside SmartX in Gartner's Full-Stack HCI Market Guide. Sangfor offers a comparable hyper-converged and private cloud portfolio targeting Chinese enterprises with similar Xinchuang positioning.
• Huawei (FusionSphere / HCI): Huawei's FusionSphere / HCI suite competes head-on with SmartX in Chinese enterprise and government deployments, with particular strength in Kunpeng/Hygon ARM-based Xinchuang stacks. Frequently co-evaluated against SmartX in domestic virtualization rankings.
• H3C (CAS / UIS): H3C's CAS (Cloud Automation System) and UIS hyper-converged product lines compete directly with SMTX OS in Chinese enterprise and government markets, often bundled with H3C/New H3C servers and storage.
• ZStack: Domestic Chinese cloud infrastructure competitor evaluated alongside SmartX SMTX OS in 2025 virtualization platform assessments. ZStack provides IaaS and HCI software with similar Xinchuang positioning and open-source roots.
• Portworx (Pure Storage): Kubernetes-native enterprise storage product directly benchmarked against SmartX IOMesh in TPC-C MySQL and PostgreSQL tests, where IOMesh reported 2.81x and 1.47x performance advantages respectively. Both target stateful workloads on Kubernetes/OpenShift.
• Scale Computing: Independent HCI vendor offering edge-focused hyper-converged appliances and software. Comparable in product category (HCI for enterprise/edge workloads), though primarily competing in North America and EMEA rather than Asia.

Broad incumbents

• VMware (Broadcom): The dominant incumbent SmartX explicitly targets for displacement. VMware vSphere + vSAN defined enterprise virtualization and HCI; Broadcom's acquisition and licensing changes have become SmartX's primary sales catalyst. Both serve the same enterprise virtualization workloads.
• Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation (ODF): Red Hat's Kubernetes storage solution, into which IOMesh has been certified as China's first OpenShift-certified storage product. Comparable as enterprise Kubernetes-native storage, but ODF is bundled within Red Hat's broader OpenShift platform.

Emerging players

• StorMagic: HCI vendor specializing in small-footprint, edge, and remote-site deployments — comparable to SmartX's SMTX Halo appliance play and 3-node minimum starting cluster configuration for SMB and edge customers.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/smartx_hq

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds5 records

Investors9 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about SmartX