Pure Storage Inc. is raising the stakes in the artificial intelligence game for the storage market. On Wednesday, the company announced a second AI-ready infrastructure offering called the AIRI Mini that was architected in collaboration with Nvidia Corp. The AI solution is designed to help speed AI adoption for enterprise customers.

“They want to be the infrastructure for machine learning and AI,” said Dave Vellante (@dvellante), co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio. “This is Pure’s game. Be first, get out in the lead, market it hard, and then let everybody else look like they’re following.”

Vellante and co-host Lisa Martin (@LuccaZara), analyzed the events and current news during this week’s Pure Storage Accelerate event in San Francisco. They discussed the company’s focus on data as a major business driver and recent favorable growth results in both revenue and customers. (* Disclosure below.)

Analyzing data to drive the enterprise

Pure’s latest announcement goes the heart of the current enterprise focus on data, recognizing the importance of being able to store and analyze information quickly and powerfully. At the Wednesday event, company executives shared the findings of a C-suite survey that showed that analyzing data would be the key to driving the enterprise forward

“One of the things I thought they did well was position the power of data,” Martin said. “Data is really a business catalyst.”

The data storage systems provider reported a quarterly year-over-year revenue increase of 40 percent on Monday, on top of 300 new customers. Despite the positive results, Pure’s share price trended downward this week as some investors expected more.

“This company has accelerated to a billion dollars, the first [pure play storage] company to hit a billion since NetApp,” Vellante noted. “They’re lowering their guidance in terms of growth rates, so that freaks [Wall Street] out. I personally think it’s pure conservatism, and I think they’ll continue to beat those expectations.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Pure Storage Accelerate. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Pure Storage Accelerate 2018. Neither Pure Storage Inc., the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: Nvidia