Financial services are undergoing rapid transformation, driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and powered by modern AI Infrastructure. From microsecond gains in high-frequency trading (HFT) to real-time fraud detection, institutions are now competing on the strength of their AI data platforms. Yet, traditional architectures–built for static storage, not dynamic insight–are too siloed and slow to support today’s demands. To stay ahead, financial institutions need a unified AI data intelligence platform that delivers real-time performance, governance, and scale.
This whitepaper explores how solutions like DDNʼs AI data storage architecture enables financial services leaders to accelerate profitability and build trust–by unlocking the full business value of intelligent, high-performance data infrastructure.
The Data Challenge in Financial Services
Financial institutions generate and process massive real-time data streams, from trading activity to compliance reporting. Yet many are still constrained by legacy storage systems that weren’t designed for AI-centric workloads. These outdated architectures lack the flexibility, performance, and scale needed to power today’s most critical use cases, including:
- Sub-millisecond latency for high-frequency trading
- Large-scale, multi-format fraud detection pipelines
- Complex, multi-jurisdictional compliance workflows
- Real-time support for AI/ML model training and deployment
As highlighted in the NVIDIA 2025 Financial Services AI Report, more than half of industry leaders now view AI as a strategic priority–and nearly 98% plan to increase investments in AI infrastructure by 2025. These institutions are prioritizing unified, high-performance AI data platforms that enable secure, scalable AI development and deployment across hybrid environments.
AI Demands a New Data Foundation
AI in financial services has matured far beyond the pilot stage. Today’s AI data workloads are mission-critical and run across diverse functions, including:
- Real-time fraud detection
- Dynamic risk modeling
- Automated KYC and onboarding
- High-frequency algorithmic trading
- Generative AI for document processing and portfolio optimization
These evolving use cases require more than just faster compute–they demand a
unified AI data intelligence platform that can:
- Seamlessly ingest, tag, and manage structured and unstructured data
- Deliver consistent, low-latency performance across cloud, core, and edge
- Eliminate storage bottlenecks that delay AI inference and decisioning
- Provide granular metadata control and governance for compliance and transparency
NVIDIA’s 2025 findings confirm that AI data platforms have moved from experimental to essential—becoming foundational to enterprise strategy. Workloads like generative AI, predictive modeling, and real-time analytics have gone mainstream–with generative AI alone growing 52% year over year. To support these demands, institutions must adopt AI infrastructure purpose-built for scale, speed, and governance.
Speed, Intelligence, and Trust in One Unified System
Financial institutions need more than just fast data storage–they need AI infrastructure that understands their data, moves at the speed of the market, and supports trustworthy outcomes across high-stakes use cases.
The DDN Data Intelligence Platform is purpose-built for this need. It provides the foundation for AI-driven financial services, combining the throughput of high-performance AI data storage with the intelligence of real-time metadata analysis and automated data orchestration.
By unifying compute and storage workflows, this platform allows organizations to:
- Move, tag, search, and govern data at massive scale
- Operate seamlessly across cloud, core, and edge environments
- Enable real-time AI pipelines without bottlenecks
- Support consistent governance and compliance across workloads
Whether you’re building fraud detection models, training AI agents, or scaling portfolio analytics, this AI data platform delivers the trust, control, and responsiveness modern financial enterprises require.
Optimized for Financial Services Workloads
From high-frequency trading (HFT) to fraud analytics and regulatory compliance, today’s most advanced financial use cases depend on AI infrastructure that can respond in real time–without trade-offs in scale, latency, or control.
The DDN Data Intelligence Platform is engineered to support modern AI data workloads across the financial enterprise, providing the speed and precision required to stay competitive. It offers:
- Terabyte-per-second throughput, ideal for high velocity trading, large-scale model training, and data ingestion pipelines
- Ultra-low latency object and file services, supporting instant inference for fraud detection and algorithmic decisions
- Event-driven architecture that triggers AI workflows based on live transactions or market shifts
- Multi-tenant design and QoS policies, allowing AI and compliance teams to securely share infrastructure without contention
- Native integration with modern AI tools like Trino, NeMo Retriever, CSI, and RAG pipelines–essential for frictionless deployment across evolving AI/ML stacks
Together, these capabilities ensure that financial institutions have the AI-ready data platform required to power decision-making at the speed of the market.
AI-Ready by Design
As financial institutions embrace generative AI, agentic systems, and real-time automation, infrastructure is emerging as a core competitive edge. To fully capitalize on the promise of AI, firms need a platform that is AI-ready by design—built from the ground up to support intelligent workflows at scale.
DDN’s AI data intelligence platform provides the performance and flexibility to enable:
- Real-time ingestion and indexing of millions of transactions or documents
- Deployment of AI-powered assistants for onboarding, customer service, and financial advising
- Scalable inference across structured and unstructured data for risk modeling, fraud detection, and ESG analysis
- Localized, low-latency AI data processing, eliminating the need for excessive data movement
With its high-throughput AI storage architecture and metadata-driven orchestration, this unified platform supports everything from document automation to portfolio optimization—with the speed, transparency, and control required by modern financial services leaders.
Why It Matters
AI is delivering real, measurable results across the financial sector. According to NVIDIAʼs 2025 State of AI in Financial Services Report, 76% of institutions using AI have seen revenue increases, and over 60% have reduced operational costs. But to unlock these outcomes at scale, firms need more than AI experimentation—they need an AI infrastructure that’s fast, intelligent, and built for enterprise deployment.
The DDN Data Intelligence Platform removes one of the biggest friction points in scaling AI: the need to rework legacy data pipelines. It allows financial institutions to run existing tools and workflows with modern performance, accelerating adoption without requiring disruptive changes.
Critically, DDN enables teams to analyze and act on data in place—eliminating the need to egress large datasets from AWS, GCP, or hybrid environments. This dramatically reduces cloud-related costs, especially for AI data storage and inference workflows where real-time access and low-latency matter most.
By minimizing total cost of ownership (TCO) and accelerating time-to-value, DDN’s platform empowers financial institutions to scale their AI data platforms without compromise—delivering speed, trust, and compliance at every stage of the AI lifecycle.
Business Impact: Profitability and Trust at Scale
The business case for adopting AI infrastructure in financial services is stronger than ever. According to the NVIDIA 2025 Financial Services AI Report:
- 76% of firms using AI reported revenue growth of 5% or more
- 16% achieved 10–20% top-line increases
- Over 60% cut annual costs by at least 5%, thanks to AI-enabled efficiencies
These results are powered by scalable, production-ready AI data platforms that support mission-critical use cases—from fraud detection to algorithmic trading to regulatory compliance.
DDN directly enables these outcomes through a high-performance AI data intelligence platform that:
- Accelerates AI pipelines from data ingestion to inference with zero bottlenecks
- Reduces time-to-insight through metadata-aware queries and low-latency AI storage
- Unifies access to structured and unstructured data across teams and tools
- Supports real-time compliance and fraud analytics through event-based triggers and granular data control
By delivering faster decisions, lower costs, and infrastructure you can trust, DDN positions financial institutions to grow revenue and increase trust—while staying compliant, secure, and scalable.
Future-Ready for Agentic AI and Sustainable Finance
The next wave of AI in financial services will be defined by agentic systems—autonomous AI agents capable of making decisions, taking action, and continuously learning across complex, high-impact workflows such as:
- Dynamic portfolio rebalancing
- Continuous fraud and threat monitoring
- Personalized onboarding and financial advising
To support these pipelines, institutions need an AI data platform that offers more than raw performance. They need metadata-rich architecture, real-time data orchestration, and deployment flexibility across edge, cloud, and hybrid environments. Platforms like DDN Infinia are already enabling this next generation of AI with built-in scalability and resilience.
AI is also becoming a critical driver in ESG and sustainable finance initiatives. According to the NVIDIA report, production-ready AI use cases for ESG doubled year over year—placing new demands on infrastructure to be not only fast, but also energy-efficient, traceable, and cost-effective.
DDN’s AI infrastructure is already powering some of the world’s most advanced AI
clusters, including those at NVIDIA. It delivers:
- Optimized GPU utilization
- Reduced energy consumption via high-density flash
- Lower TCO with containerized services and intelligent data storage for AI
By preparing for agentic AI and sustainable growth, DDN ensures financial institutions can lead in performance and responsibility.
The Future is Now
To compete in the age of AI, financial institutions must modernize their infrastructure stack. The opportunity is massive, but so are the stakes. The firms that win will be those that move first, with AI infrastructure built for speed, scale, and real-time decision-making.
Recommended Next Steps:
- Audit latency-sensitive workflows for performance gaps, from fraud detection to algorithmic trading.
- Map workloads to the right tiers—use DDN Infinia for AI inference, governance, and real-time orchestration, and EXAScaler for training-intensive pipelines.
- Plan for multi-cloud and hybrid operations using an AI data platform that spans edge, core, and cloud.
- Invest in infrastructure that natively integrates with leading AI tools like NeMo, Trino, and RAG, accelerating your path from data to insight.
By upgrading to intelligent, AI-ready infrastructure, firms don’t just gain performance—they unlock new revenue streams, reduce risk, and build a foundation for continuous innovation in financial services.
Ready to Accelerate Your AI Advantage?
DDN is the trusted AI data platform behind the world’s most advanced analytics environments—including NVIDIA’s internal clusters and leading global financial institutions.
Whether you’re optimizing high-frequency trading, deploying AI-powered fraud detection, or scaling generative AI for client services, DDN gives you the AI storage, orchestration, and security to lead with confidence.
Learn more at ddn.com or contact our team to start your infrastructure assessment.
