DDN

What DDN does

DDN (Data Direct Networks) is a privately held AI data platform company headquartered in Chatsworth, California, that provides high-performance storage and data intelligence solutions for AI training, inference, and HPC workloads. Its core offering is DDN Infinia, a software-defined data intelligence platform delivering high S3 performance, terabytes-per-second throughput (up to 10 TB/s), and sub-millisecond latency, complemented by EXAScaler (parallel file system), DDN Enterprise AI HyperPOD (pre-configured reference architectures from 4 GPUs/0.5 PB to 256 GPUs/12+ PB per rack), IndustrySync Pipelines (validated vertical AI workflows), and a co-developed Google Cloud Managed Lustre service. The platform integrates tightly with NVIDIA's CMX context memory, BlueField-4 DPUs, and CUDA ecosystem, and DDN participates as a core maintainer in NVIDIA's open-sourced cuFile/Storage-Next initiative.

The company serves enterprises, cloud providers, research institutions, and government agencies across financial services, life sciences, energy, defense, automotive, and sovereign AI verticals. Named customers include TotalEnergies (€100M+ Pangea 5 supercomputer at 75 petaflops), Sony Honda Mobility, Naval Postgraduate School, Northrop Grumman, AmericanAI, and Nebius. Revenue is generated through hardware sales of AI storage systems, recurring/subscription revenue from vertical-specific AI pipelines (including a 90-day Early Adopter Program for Financial Services), and professional services for integration and deployment; pricing is quote-based on multi-year enterprise contracts.

Go-to-market is enterprise field sales augmented by deep co-development and co-sell partnerships with NVIDIA, Google Cloud, Supermicro, ASUS, Oracle Cloud, Cisco, and Nebius, with presence at major industry events (GTC, FMS, Google Cloud Next). The company secured $300 million in private equity funding in 2025 to fund AI infrastructure expansion, appointed a Chief Financial Operating Officer in February 2026 to lead finance, operations, capital strategy, and global supply chain, and won CRN 2025 Product of the Year for DDN Infinia.

Name

DDN

Legal name

DDN (Data Direct Networks)

Website

https://ddninc.tv

Company type

Private

Founded year

2007

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

DDN (Data Direct Networks) provides high-performance AI data infrastructure, including the DDN Infinia storage platform, EXAScaler file system, and IndustrySync AI pipelines, serving enterprises, cloud providers, government agencies, and research institutions across AI training and inference workloads globally.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

AI Data Storage and Infrastructure

NAICS

Computer Storage Device Manufacturing (334112), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (5182), Computer Facilities Management Services (541513), Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151)

SIC

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

akta.pro primary industry

Storage Virtualization & Software-Defined Storage (SDS) (HDABAEAF)

akta.pro secondary industry

AI Memory & Storage for Training (HBM/DDR/SSD/Object Storage) (HDAAAAAF)

Keywords

• AI data storage
• High-performance storage
• Parallel file systems
• AI infrastructure platform
• Enterprise storage systems

Headquarters

HQ city

Los Angeles

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. AI Storage Systems: High-performance storage systems and software platforms for AI infrastructure, including storage appliances and software-defined solutions
2. Industry-Specific AI Solutions: Vertical-specific AI pipelines and blueprints for Financial Services and Life Sciences, delivered through Early Adopter Programs
3. Professional Services: Integration, deployment, and consulting services for enterprise AI implementations

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

DDN provides high-performance AI data storage and software-defined data intelligence platforms for AI training, inference, and HPC workloads. Its flagship DDN Infinia platform delivers terabytes-per-second throughput, sub-millisecond latency, and KV cache optimization, packaged with DDN Enterprise AI HyperPOD reference architectures and IndustrySync Pipelines for Financial Services and Life Sciences. The company co-delivers Google Cloud Managed Lustre and integrates with NVIDIA, Supermicro, Cisco, Oracle Cloud, and ASUS ecosystems.

Product overview

DDN is an AI data platform provider offering a unified portfolio of storage and AI workflow solutions. The core offering centers on DDN Infinia, a software-defined data intelligence platform that delivers high-performance storage with terabytes-per-second throughput for AI training, inference, and RAG pipelines. This is packaged through DDN Enterprise AI HyperPOD, pre-configured validated solutions combining DDN storage with partner hardware for rapid deployment. DDN extends its platform through EXAScaler (extreme parallel file system), IndustrySync Pipelines (industry-specific AI workflows for Financial Services and Life Sciences), and the Google Cloud Managed Lustre cloud service. The products share a common architecture optimized for AI workloads with KV cache management, GPU utilization optimization, and multi-modal data support across training and inference scenarios.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• DDN Infinia Software-defined AI data intelligence platform delivering high S3 performance, parallel file system capabilities, and AI orchestration for training, inference, and RAG pipelines at scale. Used by enterprises, cloud providers, and government agencies running AI/ML workloads.
• DDN Enterprise AI HyperPOD Pre-configured validated AI infrastructure reference architecture combining DDN storage with partner hardware (e.g., Supermicro) for rapid deployment of enterprise AI workloads in configurable GPU and capacity tiers.
• EXAScaler Extreme parallel file system technology providing high-performance data orchestration for AI and HPC workloads, integrated into partner platforms such as Nebius AI cloud.
• IndustrySync Pipelines Pre-integrated, validated AI workflows for specific industries including Financial Services and Life Sciences, deployable on existing customer infrastructure within days rather than months.
• Google Cloud Managed Lustre Managed Lustre service jointly developed by DDN and Google Cloud delivering up to 10 TB/s throughput for AI training, inference, and HPC workloads, including KV cache functionality for AI inference.

Quantifiable outcome

• 75% higher inference throughput compared to host memory-based KV cache
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers6 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration8 records

AI capability6 records

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Eight partnerships are on record, tiered core, major and minor.

• NVIDIAcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDDN and NVIDIA partnership to improve inference costs and GPU utilization, with DDN supporting NVIDIA hardware through storage systems and AI orchestration platform. DDN is a key partner in NVIDIA's CMX context memory platform and BlueField-4 STX architecture for AI inference infrastructure.
• Google CloudcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDDN partnered with Google Cloud to deliver Managed Lustre solutions for AI and HPC at scale, delivering up to 10 TB/s performance with 75% higher inference throughput.
• SupermicrocoreTechnology or IntegrationValidated joint solution combining DDN Infinia with Supermicro Storage A+ servers, delivering sub-millisecond latency and terabytes-per-second throughput. Jointly built one of the world's largest AI data centers with xAI in 122 days.
• ASUScoreTechnology or IntegrationASUS liquid-cooled AI infrastructure at GTC 2026 certified DDN as storage provider for NVIDIA Vera Rubin platform, supporting memory-intensive AI workloads.
• AmericanAImajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerStrategic partnership to jointly pursue U.S. Department of Defense programs requiring advanced AI, data intelligence, and autonomy capabilities for next-generation autonomous systems and AI-driven analytics.
• Future Tech EnterpriseminorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting PartnerFuture Tech facilitated Northrop Grumman's AI factory development in collaboration with DDN and other partners.
• Naval Postgraduate SchoolminorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting PartnerDDN contributed infrastructure and integration support for NVIDIA DGX GB300 supercomputer at NPS, anchoring an NVIDIA AI Technology Center.
• TotalEnergiesmajorTechnology or IntegrationTotalEnergies Pangea 5 supercomputer in Pau, France using DDN storage technologies alongside Dell and NVIDIA, delivering 75 petaflops for seismic engineering.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights7 records

Direct peers

• Hammerspace: Direct competitor in high-performance data orchestration for AI and HPC, offering parallel file system and global data management capabilities that overlap with DDN EXAScaler and Infinia.
• WekaIO (Weka): Direct competitor in high-performance parallel file system storage purpose-built for AI training and inference workloads. Weka targets similar enterprise, HPC, and AI cloud customers and is similarly embedded in NVIDIA reference architectures.
• VAST Data: Direct competitor offering a unified AI data platform combining high-performance storage with data lakehouse capabilities. VAST is also a core NVIDIA CMX/STX ecosystem partner, competing head-to-head with DDN on AI factory storage deals and recently raised at multibillion-dollar valuations.

Broad incumbents

• NetApp: Established enterprise storage incumbent that has expanded aggressively into AI workloads via its ONTAP platform and NVIDIA collaborations. Competes with DDN on enterprise AI storage deals but serves a much broader storage customer base.
• Pure Storage: Enterprise all-flash storage incumbent targeting AI workloads through FlashBlade and AIRI reference architectures with NVIDIA. Competes with DDN in enterprise AI deployments but lacks DDN's parallel file system pedigree at the very high end.
• Dell Technologies: Broad enterprise hardware and storage incumbent that delivers integrated AI infrastructure stacks (PowerScale) alongside DDN storage in some joint deployments (e.g., TotalEnergies). Competes in the same AI factory deals as a one-stop alternative.
• IBM Storage: Incumbent storage provider (Spectrum Scale / GPFS based on Lustre lineage) competing in HPC and AI workloads. Overlaps with DDN in research and enterprise HPC markets where parallel file systems are required.

Regional players

• Penguin Solutions: Provider of integrated AI factory infrastructure combining compute, storage, and orchestration, with overlap to DDN's HyperPOD-style pre-validated stacks. Operates more as an integrated system vendor but addresses the same AI factory buyer needs in adjacent go-to-market motions.

Emerging players

• Scality: Software-defined storage provider offering object and file storage for AI, big data, and enterprise workloads. Competes with DDN Infinia in the software-defined storage layer for AI/ML deployments.
• MinIO: Software-defined object storage company popular in AI/ML pipelines, often deployed alongside or against DDN-style parallel file systems. Targets similar AI infrastructure customers but with a different architecture (S3-native) and an open-source go-to-market.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/display-network-inc

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds5 records

Investors1 record

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 DDN