The Storage Architecture Behind Sustainable, Scalable AI

GPUs, accelerators, and NPUs get most of the attention in AI infrastructure, and for good reason. Compute is what makes training and inference possible. But compute is not what keeps an AI program running reliably as pilots turn into production. The success of any AI initiative depends just as much on the data storage architecture that feeds the pipeline and supports what comes after training.

AI workloads stress infrastructure differently at each stage. Ingest needs to move massive datasets quickly. Training depends on fast, consistent access. Retention and governance demand storage that can stand up to audit, reuse, and long-term preservation. Across all of these phases, storage is the constant, and it has to deliver without turning cost management into its own project.

While architecture is critical, economics play an equally important role. According to the 2026 Wasabi Global Cloud Storage Index, 66% of organizations’ AI budgets are allocated to data and compute, with storage categorized under data. Even with that investment, 42% cite high or unpredictable costs as a top challenge when managing AI-related cloud storage. At scale, AI is often constrained by data movement, data management, and the cost model underneath both.

This is where Dell and Wasabi come together. Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale provides a storage foundation for AI pipelines that need to scale across hybrid environments, with predictable economics built in.

A storage blueprint built for the Dell AI Factory

The Dell AI Factory provides a framework for operationalizing AI with an integrated approach across infrastructure, software, and services. In that model, storage is not just where data lives. It is part of the operating layer that supports ingest, access, protection, and retention across the AI lifecycle.

Dell ObjectScale is the Dell AI Factory’s object storage foundation, designed to support modern AI and analytics environments at scale:

• Exabyte-scale capacity

• 11x9s durability

• Encryption in flight and at rest

• Immutability via S3 Object Lock

For organizations standardizing on Dell infrastructure, ObjectScale provides an object storage foundation that supports AI workflows from high-performance ingest through long-term retention.

Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale

Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale extends that foundation to the cloud. These are Wasabi storage regions powered by Dell infrastructure, offering the same S3-compatible operations, the same durability and security posture, and the same integration with existing ObjectScale and PowerScale environments, now with Wasabi’s predictable, fee-free cloud economics.

This matters even more in AI environments. Many teams fall into the cold storage trap: low list prices that become far more expensive once retrieval, egress, and API fees are factored in. The 2026 Cloud Storage Index highlights this risk, with 50% of cloud storage spending going to fees, not capacity.

Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale avoids that trap entirely. It maintains performance where needed, delivers predictable costs at scale, and ensures AI data remains durable and accessible throughout its lifecycle.

Production AI requires auditability, not just performance

As AI moves into production, the challenges shift from training performance to governance, auditability, and long-term data retention. Models must be explainable. Training data must be traceable. Artifacts must be retained for compliance, reproducibility, and future retraining.

The 2026 Wasabi Cloud Storage Index underscores why this matters. Less than half of organizations (47%) are confident they can keep data operational and unaltered after a cyber attack, and 44% have experienced a cloud data loss event. For AI workloads where datasets and model checkpoints represent months of work and significant compute investment, the storage system of record has to hold up under audit, resist tampering, and remain recoverable.

Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale provides the long-term, audit ready foundation AI data requires. Training datasets, model checkpoints, logs, and prompts remain protected, verifiable, and accessible throughout the lifecycle of the model.

A strategic expansion for AI-ready cloud storage

Beyond governance and long-term protection, AI pipelines also depend on proximity and performance. To support growing demands, we’ve expanded the footprint of Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale with a new storage region in San Jose, California, bringing ObjectScale powered cloud storage closer to the West Coast AI ecosystem.

This new region delivers:

• lower latency for ingest and training

• faster access to model artifacts

• more efficient data movement across AI pipelines

It also introduces cross region replication between Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale locations, providing the geographic redundancy required to protect training datasets, model checkpoints, logs, and long-term AI records. Replication ensures that AI data remains protected and available even in the face of regional disruptions.

For organizations standardizing on Dell infrastructure, this expansion strengthens a key advantage: the ability to keep data entirely within a Dell environment, from on-premises ObjectScale and PowerScale systems to cloud-based ObjectScale regions operated by Wasabi. It’s hybrid cloud without architectural disruption, and with a stable, no-surprises cost model that AI operations demand.

The storage strategy for sustainable AI growth

As AI moves from isolated projects to core business operations, storage has become a strategic decision. Organizations that architect their AI environments with transparent costs, hybrid consistency, and long-term data governance in mind will scale faster and more sustainably than those optimizing for GPUs alone.

Wasabi with Dell ObjectScale provides the storage foundation modern AI pipelines require, and with the addition of the new San Jose region, customers gain the resilience, proximity, and cost stability needed to operate AI at production scale.

AI is powered by compute, but it is sustained by storage. With Wasabi and Dell, organizations get a storage model engineered for the realities of AI: simple, predictable, and built to support the full lifecycle of data that drives modern intelligence.