Dell receives the most Market Leader votes across enterprise AI infrastructure, while IT professionals also recognize Broadcom, HPE, Marvell, NVIDIA, Supermicro, Samsung, and others for leadership in specialized AI infrastructure categories
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Aug. 3, 2026 — During the Future of Memory and Storage (FMS) conference, IT Brand Pulse announced the results of its 2026 Enterprise AI Infrastructure Brand Leader Surveys. Based on votes from enterprise IT pros, architects, infrastructure engineers, and AI practitioners, the independent, non-sponsored research identifies Market Leaders and Innovation Leaders across 28 enterprise AI infrastructure product categories spanning AI compute, memory, storage, networking, AI operations, observability, and Compute Express Link® (CXL) infrastructure.
The report measures human perceptions of brand leadership across the enterprise AI infrastructure stack, identifying the companies IT pros trust most today and those they believe are driving the next generation of enterprise AI infrastructure.
“Enterprise IT organizations are swamped by dozens of new AI infrastructure products,” said Frank Berry, Senior Analyst, IT Brand Pulse. “The survey results show enterprise buyers favor integrated solutions for simplicity and lower deployment risk, while placing high value on best-of-breed products in areas where innovation matters most.”
Survey Highlights
Dell receives the most Market Leader votes across enterprise AI infrastructure
Dell received more Market Leader votes than any other company, earning the top position in ten product categories, including Enterprise AI Factory, Enterprise AI Training Servers, Enterprise AI Inference Servers, Enterprise Edge AI Servers, AI Infrastructure Management, and multiple enterprise storage categories.
The survey results demonstrate strong confidence among IT pros in Dell’s leadership in delivering integrated, enterprise-ready AI infrastructure platforms rather than individual hardware components.
Market Leader and Innovation Leader voting strongly align
One of the strongest findings in this year’s survey is the remarkable alignment between Market Leader and Innovation Leader voting. In 25 of the 28 enterprise AI infrastructure product categories (89%), IT professionals voted the same company as both Market Leader and Innovation Leader. Such a high degree of alignment is uncommon in brand leaders surveys and suggests that enterprise AI infra buyers increasingly associate market leadership with sustained innovation.
“We’re honored to receive this recognition from the IT professionals who rely on enterprise infrastructure every day. As AI drives unprecedented demand for memory and storage innovation, ScaleFlux remains committed to delivering the technologies that eliminate data bottlenecks and enable the next generation of AI infrastructure.” Hao Zhong, CEO & Co-Founder of ScaleFlux
Companies voted as Market Leader:
- Broadcom — AI Accelerator Fabric Switches
- Dell — Enterprise AI Factory, Enterprise AI Training Servers, Enterprise AI Inference Servers, Enterprise Edge AI Servers, AI Infrastructure Management, Primary Flash Storage for AI, Primary Disk Storage for AI, Object Storage for AI, Scale-Out File storage for AI, and Edge AI Storage Platforms.
- HPE — Enterprise Liquid-Cooled AI Servers
- Supermicro — Enterprise Dense GPU Servers
- NVIDIA — AI Core Switches and AI Edge Switches
- Samsung — Enterprise DRAM DIMMs, Enterprise AI SSDs, and CXL Memory Expansion Modules
- ScaleFlux — Computational Storage
- Nutanix — Hyperconverged Appliances for AI
- Databricks — AI Data Lakehouse Platforms
- IBM — Global AI Storage Fabric Platforms
- Vertiv — Datacenter Power & Cooling Management Platforms
- Datadog — AI Observability Platforms
- Penguin Solutions — CXL Memory Add-In Cards
- LIQID — CXL Pooling Systems
- Montage — CXL Memory Controllers
- Marvell — CXL Switches
Innovation Leader voting highlights companies advancing enterprise AI infrastructure
Innovation Leader voting recognizes the companies IT professionals believe are pushing enterprise AI infrastructure forward through new architectures, product designs, and technical capabilities. While many Market Leaders also earned Innovation Leader recognition, a few companies stand out for their leadership in emerging technologies and specialized AI infrastructure categories.
“CXL memory pooling is being tracked as its own infrastructure category for the first time, which tells you how quickly memory has become the constraint in enterprise AI,” said Sumit Puri, Co-Founder and CTO, Liqid. “Being voted both Market Leader and Innovation Leader by the IT professionals actually architecting and deploying these systems is meaningful recognition and validation for our team’s hard work.”
Among the most notable Innovation Leaders:
- Everpure was voted Innovation Leader for both Primary Flash Storage for AI and Scale-Out File Storage for AI, reflecting strong recognition for its flash-first architecture and AI storage innovations.
- Astera Labs was voted Innovation Leader for AI Accelerator Fabric Switches, highlighting its role in advancing next-generation accelerator interconnect technologies.
- Marvell was voted Innovation Leader for CXL Switches, reinforcing its position in one of enterprise AI’s newest infrastructure categories.
- LIQID, Penguin Solutions, and Montage each received Innovation Leader recognition for key CXL product categories, underscoring the growing importance of composable memory infrastructure.
- Databricks, Datadog, and Vertiv continued to earn strong Innovation Leader recognition for AI data platforms, observability, and AI infrastructure operations, respectively.
IT Brand Pulse starts tracking CXL brand leadership
This year’s survey marks the first time IT Brand Pulse has included Compute Express Link (CXL) products as a dedicated class of enterprise AI infrastructure in the explosive memory market segment. The research measures who the CXL community voted as Market Leader and Innovation Leader across CXL Memory Expansion Modules, Memory Add-In Cards, Pooling Systems, Memory Controllers, and CXL Switches, establishing an early benchmark for brand leadership in this emerging infrastructure category.
“Being recognized by IT professionals as both the Market and Innovation Leader for CXL Memory Add-in Cards is a tremendous honor for the entire Penguin Solutions team. Their votes validate our strategy and commitment to pioneering high-performance CXL solutions that empower our customers to solve the next generation of AI and data-intensive challenges.” Torry Steed, Sr. Product Marketing Manager. Penguin Solutions.
Enterprise AI buying enters its platform era
The 2026 survey reveals an enterprise AI infrastructure market rapidly evolving beyond GPU procurement toward complete AI factories designed for production deployment.
Enterprise buyers increasingly reward vendors that simplify AI deployment through integrated compute, storage, networking, software, lifecycle management, and ecosystem partnerships. At the same time, they recognize specialized innovation in areas including flash storage, dense GPU systems, accelerator fabrics, CXL infrastructure, liquid cooling, and AI operations.
The survey results demonstrate that enterprise AI infrastructure has become a layered market in which brand leadership is earned both through broad platform capabilities and through technical excellence within individual infrastructure categories.
About IT Brand Pulse
IT Brand Pulse is the trusted source for independent AI Brand Leader research. Its AI Brand Leader awards are based exclusively on votes from enterprise IT pros, architects, infrastructure engineers, and AI practitioners in independent, non-sponsored surveys. The research measures perceptions of Market Leadership and Innovation Leadership across specific AI product categories, providing technology vendors and enterprise buyers with an objective benchmark of brand strength in the rapidly evolving AI market.
For more information, visit www.itbrandpulse.com.
Related Links
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2026 Sales and Marketing Brand Leader Survey Report – results of votes from the sales and marketing community for 5 brand leader categories across 23 product types in the Sales and Marketing technology stack. Many product types are well-established with long-standing incumbents, yet are simultaneously being reshaped by AI, data, and automation.
2026 Enterprise AI Infrastructure Brand Leader Survey Report – IT professionals voted Market Leaders and Innovation Leaders across 28 products representing 6 layers of enterprise AI infrastructure: servers, storage, memory, networking, CXL, and operations.
