AI Prompting Data Awakening: Becoming the Papermaker in the AI Era

Dr. Peter Zhou

President of Huawei IT Product Line

The story of data storage is the story of humanity. We started by etching images in stone or painting on cave walls. Then we invented papyrus, and later, paper, which allowed us to preserve and transmit knowledge more easily. However, in ancient times, paper was scarce and expensive. The arrival of digital technologies means that we now have many orders of magnitude more space to record data of all kinds, but the volume of data generated by human civilization has comfortably kept pace with our ability to store it.

With the dawn of the large AI model, the challenges of explosive data growth, frequent ransomware attacks, and increasing carbon emissions cast a shadow over the landscape of data storage.

As AI technologies further develop, a massive amount of data will be generated and made constantly available for use in training large AI models, meaning that “cold” data will turn into “warm” data, and ultimately, into valuable assets. This process, often referred to as a “data awakening”, heralds a new era where enterprises are becoming data factories, generating an ever-increasing volume of data.

Data Resilience: Building the Last Line of Defense

In the face of evolving threats to data, ranging from natural disasters to malicious attacks such as ransomware, data storage is the last line of defense. It is increasingly vital that storage products be intrinsically resilient. Two millennia ago, as the Library of Alexandria burned, the books and scrolls did not know they were on fire, but in the 21st century, we can do better. Intrinsic data resilience features can allow data storage products to recognize threats and respond accordingly.

In the face of the rampant ransomware, Huawei’s innovative multilayer ransomware protection (MRP) solution leverages data protection capabilities founded on network-storage collaboration. Its three core capabilities—collaborative detection, response, and recovery—enable more effective prevention of data encryption and theft than comparable solutions.

AI-Ready Data Infrastructure: Embracing a New Paradigm

AI can now be employed to mine value from every bit of data, making a robust foundation of data infrastructure more important than ever. It’s time to build an AI-ready data infrastructure capable of accelerating the entire process of AI services, which will entail improving the performance of storage clusters to enhance the availability of computing power. To this end, a high-performance data storage system that combines both ultra-performance and large-capacity tiers, green energy efficiency, and supports full-lifecycle AI services, data resilience, as well as scale-out/scale-up expansion, holds the key.

Data fabric is also key in the AI era. We believe that Huawei has the solutions to transform mass data to valuable assets, allowing AI training data globally to be visible, manageable, and available.

We believe that as modern day “papermakers”, we must hone our craft of collecting and protecting data to better write the next chapter of the data storage story.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy, position, products, and technologies of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. If you need to learn more about the products and technologies of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., please visit our website at e.huawei.com or contact us.