Enterprises pushing artificial intelligence from trial to production are learning that infrastructure and cybersecurity are no longer distinct, isolated disciplines. Now, Vast Data Inc., a provider of disaggregated, high-performance data solutions, is addressing this reality through an expanding partner ecosystem built around expanding its proprietary AI Operating System.

That AI Operating System platform — the company’s bid to become the backbone of enterprise AI infrastructure — is built around two staple pillars, according to John Mao (pictured), vice president of business development and alliances at Vast. The first is tight integration with hardware vendors across compute, storage, and networking, and the second is a burgeoning layer of application and model partnerships, he explained. Both are expanding through the newly announced Cosmos partnership program, a global community of developers, builders and AI experts.

“You can’t go to production as an enterprise and have an accident when things like this leak out or people access the wrong information. Or maybe even basic things … like supply chain risk — at the hardware level you’re familiar [with it], but at the software level it’s the same. Now it’s within models; it’s also the same,” Mao explained. “It’s a bigger surface area for the enterprise to have to wrestle with on top of all the new technologies. I think they will start to fuse and become one — not one and the same — but they have to be thought of together as a single system.”

Mao spoke with theCUBE’s Dave Vellante and Rebecca Knight at Vast Forward 2026, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They explored Vast’s role in building a unified AI operating system through strategic hardware, software and security partnerships. (* Disclosure below.)

Vast builds out its AI Operating System with key partnership wins

At its first dedicated user conference this week, Vast Data Inc. unveiled a series of ecosystem expansions aimed at strengthening enterprise AI deployments. Highlights included the announcement of native integration with CrowdStrike’s Falcon program, focusing on two of the most critical security risks in enterprise AI adoption: data access control and data exfiltration, according to Mao.

“There’s CrowdStrike agents that can come into our platform. We can also integrate them into our pipeline by invoking specific services that may even be hosted remotely,” he said. “There’s lots of different paths in which customers could eventually consume this, but it is about inserting different capabilities. We’re not naive to think we can do everything. We’re not a security expert. We’re not doing all of the things that those companies do in terms of tracking, bad actors and things that are out there from a software perspective, so we need to lean on them.”

Rather than attempting to build a monolithic stack, Vast is clearly positioning its AI Operating System as an open foundation that integrates specialized capabilities from strategic partners. The company also announced that Twelve Labs Inc.’s technology will be brought onto the AI Operating System to serve the likes of regulated industries and financial institutions, as well as enterprises in sectors such as fraud prevention and retail analytics, Mao noted. But the company views these additions as only the start of a much broader expansion.

“We launched with about 60 partners this week,” Mao said. “I want to see that number become 600, and then, eventually, 6,000.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Vast Forward:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a media partner for Vast Forward. Sponsors of theCUBE’s coverage, including presenting sponsor Solidigm, do not have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE