Across every industry—from life sciences to energy, finance, defense, and healthcare—data has become both the driver and the barrier to innovation. As organizations advance toward exabyte-scale AI, the need to unify and access data seamlessly across locations, platforms, and clouds is no longer optional. It’s essential.
DDN is a founding member of the Single Namespace Working Group (SNS), a 34-member, cross-industry consortium led by Guardant Health and joined by Google, NetApp, Seagate, IBM, Genentech, and major national laboratories. Over the past 18 months, the group has defined the first open, interoperable standard for exabyte-scale data access and AI-ready infrastructure.
Redefining Data Freedom
The SNS standard introduces a unified architectural framework that links globally distributed data into a single, seamless namespace. By eliminating the silos that slow scientific and technological progress, SNS empowers researchers, engineers, and innovators to collaborate on massive datasets with unprecedented speed and scale.
While precision medicine benefits directly—through faster insights, earlier diagnoses, and more effective therapies—the impact extends well beyond healthcare. Any data-driven enterprise working across multiple sites, clouds, or platforms can benefit from a standard built for interoperability, scalability, and freedom of movement.
DDN’s Foundational Role
DDN’s founding role in the SNS Working Group builds on nearly three decades of pioneering high-performance and AI data platforms. Our work with organizations such as Genentech, Guardant Health, and LLNL helped define what exabyte-scale, multi-tenant AI environments should look like—environments where performance, security, and openness are aligned.
While many vendors continue to promote closed, proprietary architectures, DDN takes the opposite approach: enabling openness, collaboration, and customer choice. In the AI era, organizations need long-term data mobility and the ability to adopt new tools and workflows without restrictive lock-in.
As SNS transitions into the international standards body OASIS, the framework is positioned to become a global benchmark for how organizations scale AI infrastructure across vendors and architectures.
A New Standard for AI Infrastructure
At exabyte scale, customers cannot afford confinement. They need to burst, mount, and run anywhere—securely and efficiently—while protecting intellectual property and accelerating AI outcomes. SNS enables this through consistent, interoperable data access across on-prem, cloud, and hybrid environments.
This collaboration represents more than a technical achievement—it’s a clear statement of principle:
- Customer validation: Co-innovation with industry leaders
- Competitive contrast: DDN helped lead the move toward openness
- Strategic alignment: Reinforces DDN’s leadership ahead of SC25
- Customer-first philosophy: Enabling choice, not confinement
That’s the future DDN is building: Opening the AI Era, One Namespace for All.
