VAST Data launches AI operating system – Blocks and Files

Disaggregated shared everything (DASE) parallel storage and AI software stack provider VAST Data has announced an AI operating system.

VAST envisages a new computing paradigm in which “trillions of intelligent agents will reason, communicate, and act across a global grid of millions of GPUs that are woven across edge deployments, AI factories, and cloud datacenters.” It will provide a unified computing and data cloud and feed new AI workloads with near-infinite amounts of data from a single fast and affordable tier of storage.

VAST co-founder and CEO Renen Hallak stated: “This isn’t a product release – it’s a milestone in the evolution of computing. We’ve spent the past decade reimagining how data and intelligence converge. Today, we’re proud to unveil the AI Operating System for a world that is no longer built around applications – but around agents.” 

The AI OS is built on top of VAST’s existing AI Data Platform and provides services for distributed agentic computing and AI agents. It consists of:

• Kernel to run platform services on private and public clouds
• Runtime to deploy AI agents – AgentEngine
• Eventing infrastructure for real-time event processing – Data Engine
• Messaging infrastructure
• Distributed file and database storage system that can be used for real-time data capture and analytics – DataStore, DataBase, and Data Space

VAST is introducing a new AgentEngine feature. Its InsightEngine prepares data for AI using AI. The AgentEngine is an auto-scaling AI agent deployment runtime that equips users with a low-code environment to build intelligent workflows, select reasoning models, define agent tools, and operationalize reasoning.

It has an AI agent tool server providing support for agents to invoke data, metadata, functions, web search or other agents using them as MCP-compatible tools. Agents can assume multiple personas with different purposes and security credentials. The Agent tool server provides secure, real-time access to various tools. Its scheduler and fault-tolerant queuing mechanisms ensure agent resilience against machine or service failure.

The AgentEngine has agentic workflow observability, using parallel, distributed tracing, so that developers have a unified and simple view into massively scaled and complex agentic pipelines. 

VAST says it will release a set of open source Agents at a rate of one per month. Some personal assistant agents will be tailored to industry use cases, while others will be designed for general-purpose use. Examples include:

• A reasoning chatbot, powered by all of an organization’s VAST data
• A data engineering agent to curate data automatically
• A prompt engineer to help optimize AI workflow inputs
• An meta-agent, to automate the deployment, evaluation, and improvement of agents
• A compliance agent, to enforce data and activity level regulatory compliance
• An editor agent, to create rich media content
• A life sciences researcher, to assist with bioinformatic discovery 

VAST Data will run a series of “VAST Forward” global workshops, both in-person and online, throughout the year. These will include training on AI OS components and sessions on how to develop on the platform. 

Comment

VAST’s AI OS is not a standalone OS like Windows or Linux, which are low-level, processor-bound systems with a focus on hardware and basic services. The AI OS represents the culmination of its Thinking Machines vision and is a full AI stack entity. 

Nvidia has its AI Enterprise software suite that supports the development and deployment of production-grade AI applications, including generative AI and agentic AI systems. It includes microservices like NIM and supports tools for building and deploying AI agents and managing AI workflows. But it is not an overall operating system.

Both Dell and HPE have AI factory-type approaches that could be regarded as approaches that could be developed into AI operating systems. 

Bootnote

VAST claims it has recorded the fastest path to $2 billion in cumulative bookings of any data company in history. It experienced nearly 5x year-over-year growth in the first 2025 quarter and its DASE clusters support over 1 million GPUs around the world. VAST says it has a cash-flow-positive business model.