SC25: Western Digital Showcases AI Storage Next-Gen Innovation

In the high-stakes world of AI breakthroughs and mission-critical HPC workloads, storage infrastructure must deliver trusted performance when discovery depends on it.

Western Digital Corp., the backbone of AI-driven data economy, is unveiling next-gen solutions and partnerships at Supercomputing 2025, booth #652, that can fundamentally transform performance, capacity, flexibility and scalability for AI and HPC customers.

OpenFlex Data24 appliance

Western Digital is expanding access to high-capacity storage through strategic partnerships, bringing advanced UltraSMR technology to customers beyond traditional hyperscalers. The company’s democratized SMR approach gives customers unmatched economics at scale with its Ultrastar SMR-enabled JBOD platforms, while its OpenFlex Data24 disaggregated storage solution and RapidFlex NVMe-oF controllers eliminate traditional performance bottlenecks in AI and HPC workloads. Through an expanded Open Composable Compatibility Lab (OCCL) ecosystem with new participants, the company enables organizations of all sizes to accelerate innovation. This comprehensive approach gives customers flexibility and reduces total cost of ownership at scale to unlock new revenue opportunities with reliable, scalable storage foundations.

When: November 16-21, 2025, Where: Supercomputing 2025, America’s Center Convention Complex, St. Louis, MO

EXHIBIT AND DEMONSTRATIONS at SC25:

Powering AI Breakthroughs
The company will highlight how its storage platforms integrate with leading AI infrastructure providers to reduce bottlenecks and accelerate breakthrough discoveries. Working with PEAK:AIO‘s high-performance software-defined storage solution, Western Digital will be exhibiting how modern NVMe-oF architectures can eliminate traditional storage bottlenecks that constrain AI model development and deployment. The solution demonstrate real-world performance scenarios where storage can scale separately from compute, giving organizations more flexibility to maximize resources and GPU utilization and reduce time-to-insight across demanding AI and HPC applications.

Democratizing SMR HDD Technology for AI and HPC Environments
Western Digital will demonstrate how specialized file system optimizations can unlock SMR’s value beyond hyperscale environments, enabling organizations of all sizes to leverage SMR’s superior capacity advantages and reduced power consumption/TB. Taking a leading role in the industry, ecosystem partners Leil Storage and Swiss Vault have developed software that takes full advantage of SMR’s sequential write benefits while managing its unique operational requirements to the host.

Leveraging these partnerships, the company’s Ultrastar Data60 and Data102 JBODs with Ultrastar SMR drives deliver significantly higher storage density compared to conventional drives. With Western Digital’s latest 32TB (¹⁾ UltraSMR HDDs, the Data102 delivers up to 3.26PB of capacity in a single enclosure, making EB-scale data analysis more sustainable and efficient for specialized HPC applications across research institutions, universities, and mid-market enterprises running AI, HPC, and research workloads.

Expanded Open Composable Compatibility Lab (OCCL) Ecosystem
The company will showcase significant expansion of its OCCL ecosystem, now including new participants Asus, Leil Storage, Open-E, Solidigm, and Swiss Vault. This expanded ecosystem helps eliminate vendor lock-in and accelerates deployment timelines by providing pre-validated, interoperable solutions that customers can deploy with confidence. The lab’s newly validated SSDs include solutions from existing participants like DapuStor, Phison and Sandisk as well as a new participant, Solidigm, enabling organizations to selectively optimize performance, cost, and supply chain resilience while building modern disaggregated storage infrastructure. By serving as a vendor-neutral proving ground that simulates real-world environments, OCCL reduces integration risk and provides customers the flexibility to scale storage and compute independently without being locked into proprietary architectures.

Exhibit hours: Tuesday, November 18 – 10 am to 6 pm, Wednesday, November 19 – 10 am to 6 pm, Thursday, November 20 – 10 am to 3 pm

“At Supercomputing 2025, we’re demonstrating Western Digital’s leadership in enabling AI and HPC workloads to scale efficiently across every environment,” said Kurt Chan, VP and GM, platforms business, Western Digital. “Our platforms serve as a force multiplier. From SMR democratization that makes exabyte-scale analysis accessible beyond hyperscalers to our expanded OCCL ecosystem, we’re not just supporting today’s AI infrastructure demands, we’re architecting the foundation for tomorrow’s most ambitious computational workloads.“

At SC25, Western Digital at Booth #6529 to experience next-gen storage solutions designed to scale with AI and HPC infrastructure demands.