DDN CEO Alex Bouzari On Surviving The Age Of AI
DDN, September 30,2025
'People don't understand. They just pour money into AI and then they freak out - it's the Dotcom Bubble all over again'
When Alex Bouzari walks into a room, people notice. His collar flared, peaking out from multiple jackets, the CEO of DataDirect Networks (DDN) stands out.
With a net worth in the billions, Bouzari is firmly placed in the 'eccentric' bracket of tech founders. But when it comes to the business of data, Bouzari is deeply serious.
DDN makes the storage hardware and software layer to bring data to bear on AI workloads, with the company growing alongside Nvidia - which Bouzari is keen to note has long been a customer.
Its platform is used by hyperscalers like Google and neoclouds like CoreWeave, as well as a wide array of enterprises.
Bouzari and DDN came from the world of supercomputers, "like Nvidia," he reminds us. "The problems you have to solve in AI are actually very similar to the ones you have to solve in high-performance computing. They are matters of scale efficiency, addressing the needs of performance."