In the 2025 IT Brand Pulse Enterprise Infrastructure for AI survey, where brand leaders are chosen exclusively by human IT professionals, Dell Technologies earned the most votes for both Market Leader and Innovation Leader in File and Object Storage for AI. This double win marks a significant milestone for Dell, reflecting its deep storage heritage and its accelerating relevance in the age of AI.
According to the survey, Dell captured 24.8% of Market Leader votes, surpassing NetApp (22.8%) and Pure Storage (12.8%). Even more notably, Dell was also awarded 28.0% of Innovation Leader votes, overtaking NetApp (25.2%) and Pure Storage (12.0%).
These results represent a major shift from the 2024 survey results when NetApp held the Market Leader position and Pure Storage led innovation. The year-over-year comparisons show Dell surging ahead while others declined or remained flat, signaling strong momentum as AI workloads continue to reshape storage requirements.
A Legacy Built for the AI Era
Dell’s leadership in file and object storage is rooted in decades of storage innovation. The company’s two flagship storage engines, PowerScale for file workloads and ObjectScale for S3-compatible object storage, have long been trusted by enterprises needing massive scalability, high throughput, and frictionless management.
Today, those same characteristics are exactly what AI pipelines require.
PowerScale for AI File Workloads
PowerScale has become the backbone for AI training datasets, offering:
- Unmatched parallelism
- High-bandwidth access to billions of files
- linear cluster scalability
- multi-protocol flexibility (NFS, SMB, HDFS)
Its ability to keep multi-GPU systems saturated with training data is a foundational reason IT pros trust Dell with high-performance AI file workloads.
ObjectScale for AI Object Storage
AI architectures are increasingly object-centric and ObjectScale delivers:
- Cloud-scale S3 storage on-premises
- Automated load balancing
- Geo-distribution for large AI data lakes
- Simplified management for unstructured datasets
These capabilities align perfectly with RAG pipelines, embedding stores, and the vast oceans of training data AI systems now require.
Together, PowerScale and ObjectScale form a unified, enterprise-proven foundation for AI storage at scale, one that few competitors can match.
2024 to 2025: Dell’s Breakout Year
In 2024, Dell was a strong contender but not the frontrunner. NetApp dominated Market Leadership, and Pure Storage led Innovation. But 2025 tells a different story.
Market Leadership Gains
Dell climbed to #1, increasing its votes while both NetApp and Pure declined. The shift reflects growing confidence in Dell’s ability to support next-generation AI storage infrastructures.
Innovation Leadership Gains
Dell’s jump to 28.0%, from significantly lower 2024 levels, signals a major change in perception. IT pros now see Dell not only as stable and enterprise-proven, but as an aggressive innovator delivering new capabilities tuned specifically for AI workloads.
Why Human Voters Selected Dell as Market Leader
- Scalable platforms built for unpredictable AI growth. AI datasets grow exponentially. PowerScale and ObjectScale scale seamlessly, allowing enterprises to expand without redesigning architecture.
- Proven reliability in high-performance environments. Enterprises trust Dell to deliver predictable performance even at massive scale, critical for training and inference clusters.
- Integration across the Dell AI ecosystem. Aligned with Dell servers, networking, and NVIDIA partnerships, Dell’s file and object storage is recognized as part of a cohesive AI platform.
Why Dell Is Perceived as an Innovation Leader
- AI-tuned enhancements to PowerScale and ObjectScale. Dell continues to optimize IO paths, metadata handling, and data placement specifically for AI workloads.
- Leadership in unstructured data management. AI relies heavily on unstructured data, and Dell has long been the leader in this domain.
- Rapid progress relative to competitors. The 2024 to 2025 vote swing in Dell’s favor is the strongest in the category, demonstrating real innovation recognized by practitioners.
Conclusion
As AI reshapes the data center, organizations need storage platforms capable of extreme scale, high throughput, and effortless management. PowerScale and ObjectScale have positioned Dell Technologies at the center of this transformation.
And in 2025, human voters confirmed it: Dell is perceived as both the Market Leader and Innovation Leader in File & Object Storage for AI because enterprises trust Dell to power the future of data-driven intelligence.
About IT Brand Pulse AI Surveys
Winning AI infrastructure brand surveys matters because leaders are chosen by humans, not algorithms. IT pro votes reflect real-world experience, trust, and performance in the field, and the results signal which companies practitioners rely on most to guide them through the rapidly evolving AI infra landscape. Responses are solicited from over 1,000,000 members of on-line groups and the IT Brand Pulse IT Pro and end-user database. Learn more about brand leader surveys at www.itbrandpulse.com.
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