Latest news with #hypergrowth
Zawya
22-05-2025
- Business
- Zawya
VAST Data unveils the operating system for the thinking machine
Dubai, United Arab Emirates – VAST Data, today announced the result of nearly a decade of relentless innovation with the unveiling of the VAST AI Operating System, a revolutionary platform purpose-built to fuel the next wave of AI breakthroughs. Since the beginning of computing, every major technological revolution has been defined by the emergence of a new operating system. From the PC, to mobile, to the cloud – a unified software layer has abstracted complexity, democratized the use of new hardware, and reshaped how the world computes, communicates and innovates. Now, as AI redefines the fabric of business and society, the industry again finds itself at the dawn of a new computing paradigm – one where trillions of intelligent agents will reason, communicate, and act across a global grid of millions of GPUs that are woven across edge deployments, AI factories and cloud data centers. To make this world accessible, programmable, and operational at extreme scale, a new generation of intelligent systems requires a new software foundation. This is the moment VAST Data was built for. The launch of the VAST AI Operating System comes as the company has reached a historic milestone: the fastest path to $2 billion in cumulative bookings of any data company in history. With nearly 5x year-over-year growth in the first quarter of this year compared to last, and a cashflow-positive business model, VAST's hypergrowth reflects the market's demand for an operating system purpose-built to operationalize AI at unprecedented scale. The VAST AI Operating System is the product of nearly ten years of engineering toward a single purpose: to create an intelligent platform architecture that can harness this new generation of AI supercomputing machinery and unlock the potential of AI at scale. Developed from a clean sheet of paper, the platform is built on VAST's groundbreaking Disaggregated Shared-Everything (DASE) architecture, the world's first true parallel distributed system architecture – making it possible to completely parallelize AI and analytics workloads, federate clusters into a unified computing and data cloud and then feed new AI workloads with near-infinite amounts of data from one fast and affordable tier of storage. Today, DASE clusters support over 1 million GPUs around the world in many of the world's most data intensive computing centers. The scope of the AI OS is broad and will consolidate disparate legacy IT technologies into one simple and modern offering designed to democratize AI computing. What VAST was inventing from the start was conceived not as a collection of features, but as an entirely new computing substrate — one that unifies data, compute, messaging, and reasoning. A system built to capture data from the natural world at extreme scale, enrich it with AI-driven context in real time, and drive agentic workflows. Today, that invention takes shape as the VAST AI Operating System…a continuation of VAST's pursuit toward building a Thinking Machine. 'This isn't a product release — it's a milestone in the evolution of computing,' said Renen Hallak, Founder & CEO of VAST Data. 'We've spent the past decade reimagining how data and intelligence converge. Today, we're proud to unveil the AI Operating System for a world that is no longer built around applications — but around agents.' The AI Operating System consists of every aspect of a distributed system to run AI at global scale: a kernel to run platform services on from private to public cloud, a runtime to deploy AI agents with, eventing infrastructure for real-time event processing, messaging infrastructure, and a distributed file and database storage system that can be used for real-time data capture and analytics. Introducing the VAST AgentEngine This year, AI models and agents now come to life within the VAST AI Operating System. In 2024, VAST previewed the VAST InsightEngine – a service that extracts context from unstructured data using AI embedding tools. If the VAST InsightEngine prepares data for AI using AI, VAST AgentEngine is how AI now comes to life with data – an auto-scaling AI agent deployment runtime that equips users with a low-code environment to build intelligent workflows, select reasoning models, define agent tools, and operationalize reasoning. The AgentEngine features a new AI agent tool server that provides support for agents to invoke data, metadata, functions, web search or other agents using them as MCP-compatible tools. AgentEngine allows agents to assume multiple personas with different purpose and security credentials, and provides secure, real-time access to different tools. The platform's scheduler and fault-tolerant queuing mechanisms also ensure agent resilience against machine or service failure. Finally, AgentEngine introduces massively-scalable agentic workflow observability – with VAST's approach to parallel, distributed tracing – the VAST AI OS makes it simple for developers to enjoy a unified and simple view into massively-scaled and complex agentic pipelines. Just as operating systems ship with pre-built utilities, the VAST AgentEngine will feature a set of open-source Agents that VAST will release, one per month, to help accelerate the journey to AI computing. Some personal assistants will be tailored to industry use cases, whereas others will be designed for general purpose use. Examples include: A reasoning chatbot, powered by all of an organization's VAST data A data engineering agent to curate data automatically A prompt engineer to help optimize AI workflow inputs An agent agent, to automate the deployment, evaluation and improvement of agents A compliance agent, to enforce data and activity level regulatory compliance An editor agent, to create rich media content A life sciences researcher, to assist with bioinformatic discovery In the spirit of enabling organizations to build and build fast on the VAST AI Operating System, VAST Data will be hosting VAST Forward, a series of global workshops, both in-person and online, throughout the year. These workshops will include training on components of the Operating System and sessions on how to develop on the platform. Additional Resources: VIDEO: Introducing the VAST AI Operating System with Renen Hallak VIDEO: Inside the VAST AI OS with Jeff Denworth DEMO: The VAST AI OS Demo & Walkthrough with Andy Pernsteiner BLOG: The Grand Unification Theory of AI Infrastructure: Part II, by Jeff Denworth BLOG: Introducing AgentEngine, by Aaron Chaisson EVENTS: Register to join us on the VAST Forward Global World Tour About VAST Data VAST Data is the AI Operating System company – powering the next generation of intelligent systems with a unified software infrastructure stack that was purpose-built to unlock the full potential of AI. The VAST AI OS consolidates foundational data and compute services and agentic execution into one scalable platform, enabling organizations to deploy and facilitate communication between AI agents, reason over real-time data, and automate complex workflows at global scale. Built on VAST's breakthrough DASE architecture – the world's first true parallel distributed system architecture that eliminates tradeoffs between performance, scale, simplicity, and resilience – VAST has transformed its modern infrastructure into a global fabric for reasoning AI. Learn more at and follow VAST Data on LinkedIn, YouTube and X.
Globe and Mail
15-05-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Why SoundHound's Growth and Zero Debt Are a Bullish Signal
[content-module:CompanyOverview|NASDAQ:SOUN] SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN) is a buy in 2025 because of the value opportunity it presents. Although the company faces headwinds and criticisms, it is building leverage with its advanced voice-centric agentic AI services. Critical details include the acquisition of Amelia and expansion into new verticals. Amelia is a platform enabling developers to create business and industry-specific agentic-AI applications, expanding Soundhound's capabilities and opportunities for cross-sells and upsells. Regarding new verticals, the Q1 results include numerous updates on new and expanded business with critical advances in automotive, hospitality, healthcare, and retail. Soundhound AI Accelerates Hypergrowth in Q1 2205 Soundhound AI is still a small business with revenue of less than $30 million in FQ1, slightly short of consensus, but it is growing at a hyper pace and accelerating. The Q1 revenue is up more than 150% compared to the prior year, accelerating from just over 100% in Q4 2025 and about 80% in Q3, driven by client wins and improving diversification. The company now boasts no client representing more than 10% of revenue, and the figure is likely to fall in the coming quarters. Client wins in 2024 and early 2025 include a nationwide pizza chain which, along with ongoing business with names like Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG) and Casey's General Stores (NASDAQ: CASY), provides validation, exposure, and increasing consumer recognition. The company's guidance is favorable and aligns with the outlook for accelerated hypergrowth. Soundhound reaffirmed its previous forecast, estimating $167 million in revenue at the mid-point range, about 100% YOY growth compared to F2024, and outperformance is likely. Margin is the only area of concern for this tech stock, but it is a factor that is improving with time. The company's adjusted losses are narrowing, and profits are expected within the next two to three years. As it is, the company is sufficiently capitalized to continue for about 10 quarters at the Q1 burn rate and may not need to raise additional capital. Soundhound's No-Debt Balance Sheet Comes at a Price Soundhound's balance sheet is in good shape—but it came at a price. The company maintained its no-debt position and cash balance via dilutive actions that increased the share count by 45% over the past year. However, the lack of debt mitigates the dilution, leaving cash flow unencumbered, increasing the potential for future capital returns, including share repurchases. Assuming the company can reach profitability within the prescribed time frame, it could begin repurchasing shares before the end of the decade and rebuilding shareholder leverage. Investors should be aware of short interest. The lack of profits and dilutive actions led short sellers to pile into this name, driving their interest to over 40% at the peak. The shorts have been covering since January 2025, but interest was still elevated at 33% in late April, likely in play following the Q1 report. The report was not robust, but the 20% price increase suggests short-covering is a factor in the action. Analysts Bring Soundhound Price Targets Back to Reality [content-module:Forecast|NASDAQ:SOUN] Following the guidance update, HC Wainwright and Wedbush analysts cut lofty price targets for Soundhound. The cuts present a headwind for the market and a carrot, with the pairs' low predicting a 50% upside for this market and their average a gain of 65%. The question is how long it will take for the market to establish an uptrend, and it may not be long. This market is amid a technical reversal and poised to move higher before the end of the quarter. The risk is that the reversal won't get far; the critical resistance target is near $11.90 and potentially strong due to factors such as the price gap preceding it. Soundhound stock could remain rangebound at current levels in that scenario until a stronger catalyst emerges. Where Should You Invest $1,000 Right Now? Before you make your next trade, you'll want to hear this. MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street's top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. Our team has identified the five stocks that top analysts are quietly whispering to their clients to buy now before the broader market catches on... and none of the big name stocks were on the list. They believe these five stocks are the five best companies for investors to buy now...
