Storage infrastructure must provide reliable performance when discovery depends on it in the high-stakes world of AI breakthroughs and mission-critical HPC workloads. At Supercomputing 2025, Western Digital is showcasing innovative partnerships and technologies that have the potential to significantly improve performance, capacity, flexibility, and scalability for AI and HPC customers.
Through strategic alliances, Western Digital is increasing the availability of high-capacity storage, enabling customers to access cutting-edge UltraSMR technology beyond conventional hyperscalers.
The company’s OpenFlex Data24 disaggregated storage solution and RapidFlex NVMe-oF controllers remove traditional performance barriers in AI and HPC applications, and its democratized SMR approach offers customers unparalleled economics at scale with its Ultrastar SMR-enabled JBOD platforms.
Western Digital helps companies of all sizes to speed innovation by adding new members to the Open Composable Compatibility Lab (OCCL) ecosystem.
With reliable, scalable storage foundations, this all-inclusive strategy offers clients flexibility and lowers total cost of ownership at scale to open up new revenue opportunities.
WHEN: November 16-21, 2025
WHERE: Supercomputing 2025, America’s Center Convention Complex, St. Louis, Missouri
EXHIBIT AND DEMONSTRATIONS:
Powering AI Breakthroughs
Western Digital 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 per terabyte.
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, Western Digital Ultrastar® Data60 and Data102 JBODs with Ultrastar SMR drives deliver significantly higher storage density compared to conventional drives.
With Western Digital’s latest 32TB1 UltraSMR HDDs, the Data102 delivers up to 3.26 PB of capacity in a single enclosure, making exabyte-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
Western Digital 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.
Leadership Comments
“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, vice president and general manager, Western Digital Platforms Business. “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.”
Visit Western Digital at Booth #6529 to experience next-generation storage solutions designed to scale with your AI and HPC infrastructure demands.Â
