Neocloud-style CSP DigitalOcean is deploying the AI Operating System within its AI-native cloud.
DigitalOcean is a 14-year-old Infrastructure-as-a-Service provider known for low-cost virtual machines. It has expanded into AI IaaS offerings for customers, spanning GPU hardware and agent development services. VAST Data supplies disaggregated all-flash storage backed by a substantial AI-focused software stack called the AI Operating System, widely adopted by many Neocloud vendors. The two firms note AI agents require fast, governed context access, yet developers today assemble this from separate object stores, vector databases and data pipelines. Together they are consolidating that stack into a unified system optimized for inference and agentic workloads.
Renen Hallak, Founder and CEO of VAST Data, said: “Agents are only as good as the context they can reach. They require an integrated environment where compute, data and security work together as one system. VAST and DigitalOcean are building that platform for agents. By combining DigitalOcean's AI-Native Cloud with the VAST AI OS, we're creating an optimized path without forcing developers to stitch together disconnected services. Together, we're giving models and agents the context they need in real time, with the simplicity and economics enterprises need to operate AI at scale.”
DigitalOcean is a publicly traded US cloud provider founded in 2012 delivering IaaS capabilities. It focuses on affordable, straightforward cloud hosting for developers, startups and SMBs, positioned as a simpler alternative to hyperscalers such as AWS. Its flagship offering is Droplets: easily provisioned virtual machines similar to VPS Linux servers available in multiple sizes and regions, starting at roughly $4–6 monthly for basic instances. Headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado, it operates 15 data centers globally.
The provider has transitioned from a traditional developer cloud built around simple Droplets/VPS to an “AI-Native Cloud” targeting inference and agentic workloads. Its $111 million cash purchase of Paperspace in 2023 brought GPU infrastructure and AI/ML tooling, enabling simpler AI model training, building and deployment for developers and SMBs.
DigitalOcean now provides high-end GPU compute including GPU Droplets and bare-metal GPU servers powered by Nvidia hardware (H100, H200, B300, L40s, RTX series) and AMD Instinct accelerators (MI300X, MI325X, MI350X and more). Single-GPU and multi-GPU configurations up to 8 GPUs are available, alongside cheaper spot/interruptible capacity.
Facilities such as its Richmond data center are being upgraded with liquid cooling, high-speed non-blocking RDMA fabrics and capacity for dense GPU workloads. The company states owning its own silicon, rather than leasing capacity, improves unit economics at scale.
In essence, DigitalOcean has evolved from basic cloud hosting into the Neocloud space, delivering a complete AI stack focused on practical, affordable agent deployment and inference for its core audience.
Working with VAST Data, DigitalOcean offers Agent Data Services (ADS), a fully managed data layer that lets agents and AI applications read required context and write new insights, built on the reliability and scalability of VAST AI OS. All customer data, including agent logs, traces, video, documents and images, becomes agent-ready on ingestion and semantically searchable via a single query.
ADS merges storage, database and vector search within one platform. Data is indexed and ready for queries immediately upon arrival, removing the need for standalone vector databases or ETL pipelines. VAST explains all data enters a tenant-isolated catalog with native governance controls defining read/write permissions for each agent, ensuring agents only access authorized datasets.
VAST reports DigitalOcean reduced boot times from 120 seconds down to 15 seconds and cut operational overhead by combining storage and databases. This eliminated GPU idle time and lowered infrastructure management burden.
Paddy Srinivasan, DigitalOcean CEO, said: “The inference and agentic era needs a cloud where every layer is built to work together.
Expanding our partnership with VAST brings the VAST AI OS into the DigitalOcean AI-Native Cloud, so our customers get the performance and scale of a world-class data platform with the simplicity they expect from DigitalOcean. Together, we're making it easier and more cost-effective for developers and businesses to run AI in production.”
Beijing Qianxing Jietong Technology Co., Ltd.
Sandy Yang/Global Strategy Director
WhatsApp / WeChat: +86 13426366826
Email: yangyd@qianxingdata.com
Website: www.qianxingdata.com/www.storagesserver.com
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