Backblaze Doubles Down on Open Cloud with US-East Data Center Expansion, Enhancing AI, HPC, and Media Workflows

Backblaze expands its US-East data center footprint, doubling the data capacity and enhancing cloud storage solutions for AI, HPC, and media workflows. The move reinforces the company's commitment to an open cloud model, offering cost-effective, high-speed data transfer. The expansion is connected to the Internet2 peer exchange, facilitating rapid data movement between regions. Backblaze aims to provide customers with flexibility and cost advantages over traditional hyperscaler systems.

Backblaze has announced a significant expansion of its US-East data center, doubling its capacity and enhancing high-speed data transfer capabilities for AI, HPC, and media workflows. This strategic move underscores Backblaze's commitment to an open cloud model, providing customers with cost-effective and high-speed data transfer options [1].

The expanded data center, connected to Internet2's network, facilitates rapid data movement between regions, offering customers geographically diverse options for data storage and cloud-first disaster recovery strategies. This expansion is set to strengthen Backblaze's position in the competitive cloud storage market, particularly for AI and HPC workloads [1].

Backblaze's commitment to an open cloud model differentiates it from traditional hyperscaler systems, which often charge higher fees for similar services. By offering more affordable and flexible storage solutions, Backblaze aims to capture a larger share of the market, especially among businesses and institutions prioritizing cost efficiency and performance [1].

Broadcom Inc.'s recent shipment of its groundbreaking Ethernet switch, Tomahawk Ultra, complements Backblaze's expansion. Designed specifically for high-performance computing (HPC) and AI workloads, the Tomahawk Ultra switch delivers ultra-low latency of 250ns at full 51.2 Tbps throughput and supports up to 77 billion packets per second. Key innovations include reduced Ethernet header overhead from 46 to 10 bytes, lossless fabric technology through Link Layer Retry and Credit-Based Flow Control, and In-Network Collectives for accelerated AI operations [2].

The Tomahawk Ultra switch marks a substantial technological breakthrough in the Ethernet switch market, addressing critical performance limitations that have historically prevented Ethernet from being widely adopted in HPC and AI clusters. By reducing latency to 250ns and providing lossless networking, Broadcom has fundamentally redesigned Ethernet to make it competitive with specialized interconnects like InfiniBand and proprietary solutions [2].

One of the standout features of Tomahawk Ultra is its lossless fabric technology, which eliminates packet drops during high-volume data transfer. This is achieved through Link Layer Retry (LLR) and Credit-Based Flow Control (CBFC). LLR detects link errors using Forward Error Correction and automatically retransmits packets, while CBFC prevents buffer overflows that traditionally caused packet loss. This ensures reliable data transfer, which is crucial for AI workloads where packet loss can significantly impact training and inference performance [2].

Another significant innovation is the introduction of In-Network Collectives. This feature allows communication-intensive operations like AllReduce to be offloaded from expensive GPUs/XPUs directly to the network fabric. This addresses one of the most significant bottlenecks in distributed AI training, potentially reducing job completion times and improving the utilization of compute resources [2].

Strategically, this positions Broadcom to capture more value in the rapidly expanding AI infrastructure market. By maintaining full Ethernet compliance while dramatically improving performance, Broadcom leverages its established ecosystem while entering markets traditionally dominated by specialized interconnects. The 100% pin compatibility with Tomahawk 5 also enables rapid market adoption without requiring significant hardware redesigns from their customers [2].

In summary, Backblaze's expansion of its US-East data center and Broadcom's introduction of the Tomahawk Ultra switch are set to significantly impact the HPC and AI industries. These developments offer improved performance and reliability for critical applications, positioning both companies to capture more market share in the lucrative AI infrastructure market.

References:
[1] https://www.ainvest.com/news/backblaze-expands-east-data-region-enhancing-high-performance-storage-ai-hpc-media-workflows-2507/
[2] https://www.stocktitan.net/news/AVGO/broadcom-ships-tomahawk-ultra-reimagining-the-ethernet-switch-for-cbvo0tmbijcl.html