Company Offers an Alternative to Traditional Cloud Storage to Run AI Workloads Without Vendor Lock-In

Akave, an enterprise cloud infrastructure company delivering a modern, S3-compatible decentralized alternative to traditional cloud storage, today announced its entrance into the data storage market with the availability of Akave Cloud. Akave Cloud enables AI deployments by delivering a data lake that allows organizations to move data freely across AI and analytics platforms – without egress fees.

As infrastructure has become more efficient, traditional cloud providers have increasingly relied on opaque pricing models and steep data transfer costs, making it difficult for enterprises to forecast spending as AI workloads scale. Akave replaces that model with transparent, predictable storage economics and built-in governance controls. By decoupling compute from storage, Akave gives organizations greater control over where their data lives and how it moves across hyperscalers and emerging neoclouds purpose-built for HPC and AI. Akave provides a compute-agnostic storage layer that enables flexibility to control budgets, reduce lock-in, and take full advantage of next-generation AI infrastructure.

“Distributed systems improve scale and resiliency by spreading workloads across multiple nodes, but decentralization reduces reliance on any single controlling party, a distinction critical for enterprises deploying AI,” said Stefaan Vervaet, founder and CEO of Akave. “The real challenge is maintaining control over where data lives, how it moves, and how it’s governed across environments. We built Akave Cloud to provide a portable, verifiable storage foundation that enables enterprises to run AI workloads with full data ownership, auditability, and long-term flexibility.”

Running on its own dedicated Avalanche Layer 1 blockchain, Akave Cloud is designed to support enterprises running data-intensive AI and analytics workloads. The platform delivers predictable cost structures, enterprise-grade performance, and built-in compliance controls, enabling organizations to manage large-scale data environments with greater operational efficiency and governance. Akave seamlessly integrates with leading cloud applications and open-source communities, such as Snowflake and Apache Iceberg, to support enterprises running data-intensive AI and analytics workloads that require predictable costs, strong compliance, and high performance.

Founded in 2024 by a team of data storage, data management, and Web 3 industry experts, Akave has raised more than $6 million from leading investors, including Protocol Labs, No Limit Holdings, Blockchange, Lightshift, Blockchain Builders Fund, Big Brain Holdings, Avalanche Foundation, and the Filecoin Foundation. Akave Cloud is already trusted by leading organizations, including Intuizi, LaserSETI, and 375ai, which use the platform to process consumer intelligence data for advertising insights, ingesting high-throughput astronomical observation data, and training AI models.

“Akave's founding team brings a rare combination of data storage, enterprise, and Web3 expertise. We are excited to support their delivery of sovereign, verifiable storage to enterprises running AI at scale,” Gin Chao, General Partner, No Limit Holdings.

Built for Sovereign AI and Analytics at Scale

The primary bottleneck for many enterprises and institutions is no longer model capability — it’s control. Organizations must determine where their data resides, who can access it, who holds the keys, how it is audited, and how it moves across compute environments without introducing compliance risk or vendor lock-in. Akave Cloud is purpose-built to enable sovereign AI deployments, providing a portable, verifiable storage layer that allows organizations to run AI workloads across environments while preserving data ownership, auditability, and governance.

Akave Cloud provides:

• Flat-rate pricing at $14.99/TB/month with no egress fees (no S3 egress fees)
• On-chain verifiability for tamper-proof audit trails
• Programmable, blockchain-based access controls
• Sovereign data control with no vendor lock-in

Akave Cloud includes a fully S3-compatible API, making it a drop-in replacement for existing cloud storage. With built-in integrations for Snowflake and Apache Iceberg, organizations can run analytics, SQL queries, and AI/ML workflows directly on decentralized storage without rearchitecting their pipelines. Akave Cloud also offers a long-term archiving option to the Filecoin network for decentralized, verifiable storage, so data lakes, model artifacts, and analytics pipelines keep working as-is, with immutable content IDs tracked for every data object.

“As AI workflows span multiple compute environments, portability and verifiability become foundational,” Matias Antonio, Chief Investment Officer of Avalanche Foundation. “The next generation of AI infrastructure will be defined by portability, transparency, and governance. Akave Cloud demonstrates how decentralized storage, built on a dedicated high-performance Avalanche L1, can enable enterprises to manage data with greater sovereignty while supporting the scale and compliance requirements of modern AI workloads.”

Customer Momentum

Akave Cloud is live with data-intensive customers, including:

• Intuizi processes large consumer intelligence datasets for Martech and retail geospatial analytics.
• LaserSETI ingests and stores astronomical observation data at scale with verifiable integrity for scientific research.
• 375ai collects data from edge camera devices and manages expansive AI training datasets, benefiting from flat-rate pricing and zero egress fees.
• Skymapper stores global telescope and all-sky camera observations on Akave Cloud to make each frame tamper-proof and provably authentic with cryptographic provenance.

Akave Cloud is available today for enterprises and developers. To learn more or start a trial, visit https://akave.com/contact.

Resources:

• Blog Post – What Sovereign AI Really Means? And Why Control, Not Intelligence, Is the Real Battleground
• Video – How to Integrate Akave Cloud with Snowflake
• Knowledge Center

About Akave

Akave is building the world’s first decentralized enterprise data layer for AI and analytics. Its flagship product, Akave Cloud, delivers S3-compatible object storage with verifiability, programmability, and zero egress fees. Backed by leading investors including Protocol Labs, No Limit Holdings, Blockchange, Lightshift, Blockchain Builders Fund, Big Brain Holdings, Avalanche, and the Filecoin Foundation, Akave provides enterprises with predictable, high-performance storage for their most valuable data.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260302775473/en/

Distributed systems improve scale and resiliency by spreading workloads across multiple nodes, but decentralization reduces reliance on any single controlling party, a distinction critical for enterprises deploying AI