However, the rapid explosion of artificial intelligence has fundamentally disrupted this hands-off operational model. As businesses heavily integrate generative AI and complex automated features into their daily software tools, AI inference costs the continuous computational power required for an AI model to process data and generate real-time responses have skyrocketed. Enterprise software vendors find themselves trapped between skyrocketing hardware prices and tightening corporate margins.

Recognizing that long-term software sustainability requires physical infrastructure control, global technology giant Zoho Corporation announced the launch of Nathu La, a proprietary server platform designed completely in-house.

Developed over five years by Zoho’s hardware engineering team in Nagpur, India, in collaboration with Intel, the platform marks a bold transition from pure-play software development into custom data center hardware engineering. For the SaaS and Cloud Infrastructure industry, this launch establishes a new precedent for how technology vendors must navigate the resource-heavy AI era.

Also Read: New Relic Extends Enterprise Governance to AI Coding Assistants 

Technical Architecture: Optimizing Hardware for Targeted Software Workloads

Building a generic server is a routine commodity process; building a specialized server framework capable of optimizing vertical corporate software pipelines while dropping overhead is an advanced engineering feat.

The design philosophy behind the Nathu La platform is deeply rooted in the open-source blueprints of the Open Compute Project (OCP), prioritizing modularity, thermal efficiency, and minimal maintenance overhead. Powered by Intel Xeon 6 processors, the custom architecture delivers equivalent performance to traditional global enterprise servers while yielding massive resource advantages: a 12% to 18% reduction in power consumption and a 20% to 30% lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

Rather than buying pre-packaged, rigid server configurations from foreign tech conglomerates, Zoho designed every modular component—including the Data Centre Secure Control Module (DC-SCM) and custom Network Interface Cards (NICs)—in-house to perfectly map to their exact software demands. The architecture has already produced over five unique hardware patents covering advanced thermal management and cost-optimized design layouts.

Crucially, Zoho is not selling the Nathu La platform commercially to outside consumers. Instead, the company is completely “dogfooding” the hardware internally, with plans to scale from a few hundred pilot servers to roughly 2,000 active nodes across its global data centers by the end of the year.

Transforming the SaaS and Cloud Infrastructure Industry

Zoho’s decision to own the physical hardware layer sends clear shockwaves across the broader cloud software ecosystem, signaling a major structural transition.

The Rise of Vertical Hardware-Software Integration
For decades, SaaS vendors operated under the assumption that hardware was a utility they never needed to think about. Zoho’s entry into server design shatters this perspective. In an AI-dominated market, running contextual, right-sized language models on generic third-party servers creates immense financial waste. By tightly coupling custom-designed hardware with an in-house GPU database and application code, Zoho demonstrates that vertical integration is the ultimate defense against margin erosion. Competitors in the SaaS landscape will face mounting pressure to explore custom infrastructure plays or risk being outpriced by vertically integrated operations.

Accelerating the Trend Toward Technological Sovereignty
As global geopolitical tensions influence data residency mandates and supply chain paths, the enterprise software market is facing a push toward “sovereign tech.” Up until now, the server technology underpinning global digital frameworks was heavily monopolized by foreign multi-nationals, requiring local tech firms to pay continuous royalties and licensing fees. By keeping 100% of the underlying intellectual property domestically owned, Zoho provides a distinct blueprint for how regional enterprise ecosystems can break their absolute reliance on external infrastructure vendors, securing their long-term operational resilience.

Broad Operational Impact on Enterprise Businesses

For the millions of businesses relying on cloud-based ecosystems to power their daily workflows, the stabilization of backend infrastructure costs yields vital long-term operational advantages.

Protection Against Runaway AI Software Pricing
As software companies scramble to offset the immense costs of running large language models, end-user businesses are frequently hit with steep subscription price increases and restrictive usage caps. Because Zoho’s Nathu La architecture aggressively brings down the baseline cost of AI inference, the company can pass those structural savings directly down to consumers. Businesses gain access to predictable, highly accessible, and unthrottled AI features without fearing unexpected, volatile software billing changes.

Unlocking Unprecedented Data Governance and Speed
When software applications run on heavily fragmented cloud layers, data must bounce across multiple external vendor networks, introducing latency bottlenecks and expanding the potential security attack surface. Hosting enterprise applications on an in-house, sovereign server environment ensures tight data governance. For businesses handling highly sensitive financial logs, healthcare data, or protected customer records, this infrastructure continuity offers a verifiable audit trail that satisfies rigid global compliance frameworks while maximizing application processing speeds.

Ultimately, Zoho’s leap into hardware proves that the future of cloud software will not be won simply by writing smarter code—it will be captured by the organizations bold enough to build the foundations that power it.

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Their new solution brings in high-end storage right into the Megaport Network and Latitude.sh computing system. This lets organizations use computing, networking, and storage through one easy-to-use system. By putting these parts together, Megaport wants to make deployment simpler, boost scalability, and offer better cost predictability. That way, businesses dealing with super data-heavy tasks will have an easier time.

“With the launch of Megaport Storage, we’re not just connecting your cloud anymore; we’re providing the foundation for it,” said Michael Reid, CEO of Megaport. “By aligning storage needs directly with workload requirements on our global ecosystem, we’re combining the performance of dedicated infrastructure with the scalability and flexibility customers expect from the cloud. As demand accelerates for AI, edge computing, and high-performance workloads, Megaport is evolving into a unified platform that gives customers instant access to scalable global infrastructure. This enables new use cases, including storage and backup strategies that strengthen cyber resilience, while setting a new standard for sovereign infrastructure.”

Also Read: Lightera and Nokia Partner to Expand Optical LAN Deployment Across Europe 

One of the key advantages of the new platform is its focus on predictable pricing. Many organizations face challenges with fluctuating data transfer costs and expensive egress fees when moving large volumes of information. Megaport Storage tackles the issue by using the company’s own network backbone. This gets rid of egress charges and reduces dependence on the public internet.

They launch with block, file, and object storage support. This setup caters to high-performance needs like AI model training, backups, disaster recovery, and robust computing setups. Plus, features such as direct data access and high-speed connections up to 100G are included. These perks are meant to boost business continuity and quicker failovers.

In one platform, Megaport combines storage, computing, and connectivity. By doing this, they aim to handle the rising infrastructure requirements of AI, edge computing, and distributed apps. It all simplifies operations and improves cybersecurity.

The post Megaport Launches Storage, to Unify Network, Compute, and Infrastructure Services appeared first on ITDigest.

Also Read: Askey and Canoga Perkins Partner to Accelerate Deployment of 5G Critical Communications Solutions 

To address this, Keysight and DOCOMO are enhancing channel models using real-world radio propagation measurements, including channel impulse response data, to improve the realism of laboratory-based simulations. Keysight and NTT are working together on distributed MIMO systems. These systems use several antennas in different places. This helps improve network coverage, capacity, and reliability. They combine high-fidelity channel models with advanced propagation techniques. This partnership seeks to offer a scalable and reliable way to evaluate new 6G technologies.

Read More: Keysight Advances Realistic Channel Modeling and Wireless Simulation for 6G in Collaboration with NTT DOCOMO and NTT

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Since the company’s founding ten years ago, DriveNets’ Network Cloud has become the network of record for the world’s largest telecommunications companies. Built on the same engineering foundation, DriveNets’ Ethernet-based AI fabric supports large-scale AI infrastructures built by foundation labs, hyperscalers, NeoClouds, and large enterprises. The company is now working with leading AI vendors such as AMD, Broadcom, and others to tighten the integration between networking and compute in multi-vendor AI environments, maximizing cluster performance and GPU utilization to substantially improve token economics. It is also partnering with Dell, Supermicro, and other systems partners on go-to-market activities.

“This financing round marks a pivotal step in scaling our company to meet the surging demand for large-scale AI infrastructure,” said Ido Susan, CEO and Co-Founder of DriveNets. “The most expensive idle asset in the world right now is a GPU waiting on the network. We’re applying a decade of high-performance networking expertise to enable our customers to achieve higher utilization, reduce cost per workload, and scale their AI operations efficiently — on any AI accelerator they choose.”

Also Read: Forward Launches Forward Predict to Unlock Autonomous Networking

“AI infrastructure is entering a new era of open, integrated systems where compute, networking, and software scale together,” said Vamsi Boppana, senior vice president of AI at AMD. “Our support of DriveNets’ Series D reflects a shared commitment to scaling AI workloads efficiently with AMD Instinct accelerators and DriveNets’ high-performance fabric on open infrastructure, advancing open, standards-based AI data centers.”

Addressing the most expensive idle asset problem – a GPU waiting on the network

DriveNets’ AI fabric solutions are based on standard Ethernet and support scale-up, scale-out, and scale-across architectures, along with front-end and storage connectivity for large-scale AI clusters.  They address two fundamental constraints in AI infrastructures today: large GPU clusters operating below peak efficiency due to network bottlenecks and reliability challenges, and slow cluster bring-up time (‘idle Capex’), especially in multi-vendor environments.

DriveNets’ high-performance AI Fabric eliminates networking bottlenecks by performing end-to-end networking optimizations across the entire AI stack, including collective communication libraries, transport protocols, NICs, the network fabric, and system-level orchestration. Some of these optimizations are developed in collaboration with leading AI accelerator vendors, such as the recently published validated reference architecture for AMD-DriveNets-based clusters that maximizes GPU utilization, reduces cost-per-token, and enables rapid deployment and efficient end-to-end scaling.

“As AI systems reach unprecedented scale, the performance of the underlying network fabric has become a primary driver of AI economics,” said Charlie Kawwas, President, Semiconductor Solutions Group, Broadcom. “Broadcom’s AI semiconductor and Ethernet switching solutions, combined with DriveNets’ high-performance fabric, deliver the scale and efficiency that modern AI workloads demand. This collaboration reflects how open Ethernet is becoming the foundation of the next-generation AI data center.”

“AI networking is on track to surpass $200 billion by the end of the decade, driven by the shift from single-vendor stacks to multi-vendor and later heterogeneous AI infrastructures. DriveNets enters this phase with a strong combination — tier-one service provider reliability, validated AMD reference design, and the inventory position to deliver into a supply-constrained market. That positions the company well as open Ethernet becomes the foundation of next-generation AI infrastructure,” said Alan Weckel, Founder and Technology Analyst, 650 Group.

DriveNets – a foundational player in Heterogeneous AI

The recent AI infrastructure spending shift from training to inference is expected to drive the adoption of Heterogeneous AI architectures that bring infrastructure costs down and optimize power utilization.

Heterogeneous AI architecture uses multiple AI accelerators from multiple vendors within the same cluster, each best for a different stage or task within the AI training or inference process. The compute resources in the cluster are orchestrated to provide the best overall performance and power utilization, to reduce cost per million tokens and maximize tokens per watt.

DriveNets‘ AI fabric is uniquely positioned to support Heterogeneous multi-vendor AI environments due to its ability to perform full-stack optimization for any AI accelerator in the cluster, maximizing the performance and utilization of the entire cluster.

“Every shift in compute produces a new networking giant. Cisco wired the internet. Arista wired the cloud. NVIDIA wired single-vendor AI. DriveNets is wiring what comes next: Heterogeneous AI,” said Adam Fisher, Partner, Bessemer Venture Partners. “This is why BVP led DriveNets’ $410M Series D, an existing portfolio company we’ve backed since its Series A.”

Source: PRNewswire

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The partnership brings together Tanium’s real-time endpoint intelligence and in-platform remediation capabilities with Censys’ comprehensive, continuously updated map of global Internet infrastructure, enabling security teams to gain a complete, contextual view of enterprise exposure.

“Security teams can no longer afford to operate with blind spots between what’s happening inside their environment and what’s exposed to the outside world,” said Harman Kaur, chief technology officer at Tanium. “By combining Tanium’s real-time endpoint data with Censys’ external internet intelligence, we’re giving organizations the ability to understand, contextualize and act on risk with speed, scale and precision.”

Together, the two platforms each purpose-built for data quality and real-time intelligence break down silos and enable organizations to detect, prioritize and remediate risk from external discovery to autonomous remediation. Connecting those two views helps organizations move from insight to action faster, with greater confidence in what they’re seeing and why it matters.

Also Read: Autodesk to Acquire MaintainX, Advancing Unified Platform in Operations

“As AI accelerates the discovery and exploitation of vulnerabilities, managing Internet exposure has become critical to every enterprise security program,” said Zakir Durumeric, founder and chief executive officer at Censys. “By combining Censys’ real-time Internet intelligence with Tanium’s Autonomous IT Platform, organizations can bring real-time Internet visibility into their existing security workflows enabling faster, risk-prioritized remediation of externally exposed assets.”

The partnership reflects a broader industry shift toward continuous exposure management, where organizations must monitor and act on risk in real time as environments and threats rapidly evolve.

• Tanium enables organizations to continuously scan, prioritize and remediate vulnerabilities and compliance gaps across endpoints in real time.
• Censys delivers unmatched accuracy and scale into global internet infrastructure to uncover exposures and attacker-controlled assets.

The combined solution empowers organizations to move beyond periodic assessment toward a complete, continuous and intelligence-driven model of exposure management.

“Organizations need external attack surface visibility as part of holistic exposure management. Together, Tanium and Censys can offer security teams a correlated view of internal and external risk, with a workflow that moves from external discovery to remediation without the manual handoffs that slow response,” said Michelle Abraham, senior research director, Security and Trust at IDC.

Source: BusinessWire

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In Hardware and Network news this week…

Lightera and Nokia Partner to Expand Optical LAN Deployment Across Europe
Lightera and Nokia have partnered to accelerate the deployment of optical LAN infrastructure across Europe. The collaboration aims to provide enterprises with scalable, energy-efficient, and high-performance connectivity solutions. As organizations modernize network environments, optical LAN technology is emerging as a key enabler of next-generation digital infrastructure.

In Artificial Intelligence news this week…

Expert.ai and Fincons Expand Partnership to Advance Neuro-Symbolic AI Adoption
Expert.ai and Fincons Group are expanding their partnership to accelerate the adoption of neuro-symbolic AI solutions. By combining machine learning with symbolic reasoning, the collaboration aims to improve explainability, contextual understanding, and enterprise decision-making. This reflects the growing demand for more transparent and trustworthy AI systems.

In Cloud Security & Compliance news this week…

IBM Cloud Unveils Sovereignty Risk Profile to Strengthen AI and Data Compliance
IBM Cloud has introduced a Sovereignty Risk Profile solution designed to help enterprises address evolving AI and data compliance requirements. The offering provides organizations with deeper visibility into regulatory risks, data residency, and governance obligations. As global data regulations tighten, sovereign cloud strategies are becoming increasingly critical.

In Enterprise AI news this week…

Snowflake to Acquire Natoma to Strengthen Governance for Enterprise AI Agents
Snowflake has announced plans to acquire Natoma to strengthen governance and oversight for enterprise AI agents. The acquisition is aimed at helping organizations manage security, compliance, and operational control as AI agents become more autonomous. This highlights the growing importance of governance frameworks in enterprise AI adoption.

In Quantum Computing news this week…

Crypto4A Launches QXVault to Simplify Quantum-Safe Secrets Management
Crypto4A has launched QXVault, a platform designed to simplify quantum-safe secrets management. The solution helps organizations protect sensitive credentials and cryptographic assets against future quantum threats. As quantum computing advances, enterprises are increasingly investing in post-quantum security strategies to safeguard critical infrastructure.

In FinTech news this week…

OpenAI Unveils Self-Improving AI Tax Agents Powered by Codex
OpenAI has introduced self-improving AI tax agents powered by Codex to automate and optimize tax-related workflows. These AI agents are designed to continuously learn and adapt, improving efficiency and accuracy in financial operations. The development signals a growing shift toward autonomous AI systems in enterprise finance.

In HealthTech news this week…

JotPsych Launches JotMeet, an Integrated Telehealth Product
JotPsych has launched JotMeet, an integrated telehealth platform aimed at streamlining virtual care delivery. The solution combines communication, scheduling, and patient engagement tools to improve telemedicine experiences for healthcare providers and patients alike. This reflects the continued growth of digital healthcare services and remote care adoption.

In Cybersecurity news this week…

Proofpoint Expands AI Security Strategy with Claude Compliance API Integration
Proofpoint has expanded its AI security strategy through integration with the Claude Compliance API. The move enhances monitoring, governance, and compliance capabilities for enterprises using generative AI systems. As organizations deploy AI tools at scale, comprehensive security oversight is becoming a core enterprise requirement.

Article of the Week

Security Challenges for Smart Medical Devices in Hospitals: How Healthcare Providers Can Reduce Cyber Risk

Connected medical devices are transforming healthcare delivery, but they are also expanding the cyberattack surface for hospitals and healthcare providers. From patient monitoring systems to smart diagnostic tools, these devices often operate in highly sensitive environments with strict uptime requirements. To reduce cyber risk, healthcare organizations must adopt stronger security frameworks, continuous monitoring, device segmentation, and proactive threat management strategies. As digital healthcare ecosystems grow, securing smart medical infrastructure will remain a critical priority.

The post ITDigest’s Weekly News Roundup Featuring Lightera, Nokia, Expert.ai, IBM, Snowflake, Natoma, OpenAI appeared first on ITDigest.

Autodesk’s strategy is to converge design, make, and operate workflows, ensuring data and insights flow seamlessly in a continuous lifecycle. With the creation of Autodesk Operations Solutions (AOS), the company is bringing together its operations capabilities under a unified platform. The proposed acquisition of MaintainX is intended to strengthen Autodesk’s ability to connect operations workflows with the broader lifecycle, helping teams make faster, more informed decisions over time.

Operations represents a significant opportunity for Autodesk and a natural extension of the company’s platform strategy. Organizations are increasingly looking to connect workflows, real-world performance, and lifecycle data to improve reliability and reduce downtime. Autodesk believes expanding further into operations will unlock higher-value system level AI, extend its duration with assets and systems from years to decades, and meaningfully expand its addressable market.

MaintainX’s pre-built integrations and scalable go-to-market growth motion in operations offers strong expansion potential across customer segments, geographies, and adjacent use cases. And its central position in day-to-day maintenance and operational activity gives Autodesk access to rich data on asset history, inspections, maintenance patterns, and real-world performance.

“Autodesk is expanding beyond design and make to operations, ensuring data and insights flow seamlessly in a continuous lifecycle. For decades, we’ve helped customers create the world around us, giving Autodesk a strong foundation of industry workflows, data, and context across the AEC and D&M industries,” said Andrew Anagnost, CEO of Autodesk. “Our goal with MaintainX is to bring deep operational expertise, contextual data, and workflows that enhance our ability to use AI to converge digital and physical worlds.”

Also Read: Arduino Unveils VENTUNO Q with Qualcomm Dragonwing IQ8 

AOS brings together Autodesk’s growing operations capabilities on its unified platform, including digital twin, planning and execution, and performance analysis. This includes Tandem, Flexsim, Fusion Operations, and Factory Design Utilities. AOS reflects Autodesk’s long-term commitment to helping customers create a continuous, data-driven loop by defining and deploying assets and resources, running and maintaining them, all the way through to optimizing their performance.

“Operations is where organizations manage the systems, assets, facilities, and workflows that keep their businesses running every day,” said Stephen Hooper, SVP of Autodesk Operations Solutions. “Autodesk is enabling customers to move from managing operations to continuously improving them, deriving more value from their data, and positioning them for the coming wave of AI-driven workflows. MaintainX brings deep expertise in maintenance and frontline operational workflows that complements this broader strategy.”

MaintainX is used by organizations around the world to manage maintenance activity, asset information, inspections, work orders, and operational workflows. Its solution is designed to capture valuable, high-frequency data on asset condition, maintenance history, and performance in the field.

“MaintainX was built to empower the people who keep the physical world running,” said Chris Turlica, founder and CEO of MaintainX. “Joining forces with Autodesk is an incredible opportunity to accelerate that mission. Together, we can connect the teams who design and build assets with the teams who operate and maintain them every day, and help customers work smarter across the entire lifecycle of their assets.”

Source: PRNewswire

The post Autodesk to Acquire MaintainX, Advancing Unified Platform in Operations appeared first on ITDigest.

Under the agreement, Lightera will combine its expertise in passive optical infrastructure with Nokia’s Passive Optical Network (PON) technologies to deliver integrated Optical LAN solutions for enterprise customers. The offering is aimed to assist organizations in upgrading their traditional network setups to the fiber-based systems that are scalable, capable of providing higher speeds, better security, enhanced reliability, and lower costs of operations.

Optical LAN, also known as Passive Optical LAN (POL), substitutes the traditional copper-based and switch-heavy local area networks with a fiber infrastructure that consumes less energy and is more scalable. As per the companies, the technology is able to cut down the total cost of ownership by up to 50% while at the same time, catering to the increasing performance demands of contemporary digital operations.

Also Read: Forward Launches Forward Predict to Unlock Autonomous Networking

The joint solution will integrate Lightera’s optical infrastructure with Nokia’s GPON, XGS-PON, and 25G-PON technologies. Customers will also receive end-to-end support services, including consulting, deployment assistance, technical support, and training programs delivered through the companies’ ecosystem of channel partners and integrators.

“Optical LAN is a natural extension of our strategy to deliver high-performance, scalable connectivity solutions for enterprise environments,” said Edmond Ayvazian, Business Developer at Lightera. “As AI-driven applications continue to increase network demands, organizations require infrastructure that can support higher bandwidth, lower latency, and greater reliability. Our collaboration with Nokia brings together passive infrastructure and advanced PON technologies to meet these evolving needs.”

Nokia also emphasized that the shift toward AI-intensive workloads is driving a broader transformation in enterprise networking strategies.

“As AI-driven workloads continue to reshape network requirements, enterprises need infrastructure built for a new era of secure, deterministic, and efficient connectivity. This is an architectural shift, not simply a technology refresh,” said Sylvain Rajaud, Vice President, Head of Partner Sales Management, Europe at Nokia.

The companies expect the collaboration to support enterprise modernization efforts across industries including healthcare, manufacturing, retail, education, and hospitality throughout Europe.

The post Lightera and Nokia Partner to Expand Optical LAN Deployment Across Europe appeared first on ITDigest.

The Board determined the time was right to appoint a new leader to further develop and execute the company’s strategy in the years ahead. They identified Keleghan as a successor who is deeply aligned with the company’s mission, values, and dedication to delivering exceptional experiences.

Keleghan brings considerable experience leading global public and private organizations, with deep expertise in tech-enabled services. Most recently, he served as CEO of New Era Technology, an AI, application, and infrastructure technology partner, and previously as CEO of OSG, a global leader in customer engagement and payment solutions.

Also Read: DriveNets High-Performance AI Networking Available on the Dell AI Factory

“We are grateful to Paget for his partnership and the progress achieved at Sorenson under his leadership,” said Yue Bonnet, Senior Managing Director and Head of Investments of Ariel Alternatives, which holds a majority stake in Sorenson. “Kevin brings valuable experience to scale complex organizations as the company enters its next chapter of growth.”

Widely recognized for guiding both startups and multi-billion-dollar enterprises through digital transformation and operational excellence, Keleghan has helped organizations strengthen market positions and enhance customer experiences.

Source: PRNewswire

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