QNAP Edge AI Storage Server

An all-in-one Edge AI computing platform integrates storage, virtualization, and computing power to help enterprises efficiently, securely, and cost-effectively deploy on-premises AI applications — accelerating smart transformation across industries.

Challenges enterprises face in the AI era

As GenAI, LLM, and edge computing demands surge, traditional IT infrastructures are hitting several bottlenecks:

  • High cloud security risks

    Over 90% of enterprises cite data security as a top concern when deploying AI. Cloud-based deployments expose data to potential leaks and compliance risks.

  • Soaring deployment costs

    Stacked licensing fees for cloud models, token usage, GPU access, storage, and virtualization platforms significantly drive up the total cost of ownership (TCO).

  • Fragmented infrastructure

    Disconnected compute and storage systems lead to time-consuming integration and complex maintenance.

  • Unstable performance

    Shared infrastructure causes AI models and virtualization applications to compete for system resources, resulting in latency and unpredictable performance.

  • Exploding data volumes

    AI and data-intensive applications generate massive data, straining traditional storage scalability and data management capabilities.

Why choose the QNAP Edge AI storage server?

QNAP Edge AI storage server delivers a unified edge computing platform that integrates data storage, virtualization, GPU and I/O acceleration, and CPU resource management. It enables enterprises to efficiently deploy AI applications and edge devices on premises. Businesses can install QNAP’s hypervisor app Virtualization Station or container management platform Container Station on the QAI to flexibly build on- premises AI inference servers and edge storage servers tailored to specific use cases, that delivers high performance and low latency.

Supports diverse edge AI applications:

  • ️Small language model (SLM) inference
  • Large language model (LLM) inference
  • Generative AI
  • AI model inference and fine-tuning
  • Smart manufacturing & industrial automation
  • Smart retail & customer analytics
  • Smart surveillance & video analytics
Supports diverse edge AI applications

Enhanced data control

All data and applications are hosted on premises, eliminating risks associated with public cloud transmission and ensuring compliance.

Simplified deployment & management

Run storage, VMs, GPU workloads, and apps on a single QAI to minimize cross-device complexity.

Instant performance readiness

Dynamic resource allocation and hardware acceleration ensure smooth and efficient VM and AI operations.

Cost efficiency

QNAP’s license-free virtualization platform significantly reduces long-term TCO.

Technical advantages over traditional architecture

QNAP Edge AI storage server offers flexible system resource allocation, advanced hardware acceleration, and enterprise-grade data protection — making it an ideal platform for edge computing.

Dedicated resource allocation

Use Virtualization Station to assign CPU, memory, and network bandwidth to specific virtual machines (VMs), preventing resource conflicts.

GPU acceleration for AI workloads

Enable GPU passthrough to allocate physical GPUs to VMs for faster AI inference and graphics processing.

SR-IOV for optimized networking

Provides virtual machines with direct NIC channels, reducing network latency and bandwidth overhead.

High-performance PCIe passthrough

Assign graphics cards, network cards, or storage controllers directly to VMs, achieving near-native hardware performance.

Scalable storage expansion

Supports SAS / FC storage expansion enclosure to meet growing AI and virtualization storage demands.

Enterprise data protection

Built on ZFS, supporting RAID, snapshots, data immutability (WORM), data deduplication, and SSD optimization.

Unleash VM performance with precise resource allocation

  • Advanced acceleration technology
    Passthrough Technology

    Directly assign physical GPU, NIC, or other PCIe device resources to designated virtual machines, minimizing hypervisor overhead for more stable performance and lower latency.

    • GPU passthrough
    • PCIe passthrough
  • Optimized resource allocation
    CPU Resource Management

    With CPU resource management (to be supported soon), you can assign dedicated CPU threads to specific virtual machines (CPU Isolation), ensuring stable and independent VM operation while significantly reducing resource contention and performance fluctuations between VMs and other applications.

Seamlessly run on-prem LLMs on QNAP QAI

Integrates virtualization, large language model (LLM), and intuitive UI on one device:

  • 1Deploy application containers

    Flexibly deploy various types of applications and services using QNAP Container Station, which supports multiple containerized runtime environments such as Docker, Kata, and LXD.

  • 2GPU-accelerated computing

    Configure GPU access permissions within the container environment to allow containers to directly utilize the NAS's GPU for AI inference or video processing acceleration.

  • 3Deploy multiple LLMs

    Using Ollama, you can easily deploy a variety of open-source large language models (LLMs), such as LLaMA, DeepSeek, Qwen, and Gemma, with the flexibility to switch or update models as needed.

  • 4 Integrate with web-based interfaces

    Install open-source web interfaces like Anything LLM or Open WebUI to connect with language models without writing code to create custom AI assistants, smart customer service bots, or internal search tools.

Transform your QAI into a VM backup server

A single QNAP QAI can serve both as a virtualization host and a central backup server.

  • 1Run multiple virtual machines (VMs)

    Virtualization Station is the QNAP QuTS hero hypervisor app and allows you to deploy multiple Windows® or Linux® virtual machines on a single QAI.

  • 2Support for VM backup

    Install Veeam® backup software on an independent VM running on the QAI and configure the QAI as the backup target. This enables centralized storage and management of backup data from various workloads, including VMs, physical servers, other NAS devices, and cloud services.

  • 3CPU resource management

    VM backup tasks require intensive CPU computing resources. Through Virtualization Station, you can efficiently allocate CPU resources to ensure stable and uninterrupted backup operations.

Versatile applications for diverse business needs

  • Enterprise AI knowledge hub

    Enterprise AI knowledge hub

    Combine NAS, LLMs, and RAG to build an internal AI-powered search system — enhancing data retrieval, analysis, and productivity.

  • AI chatbots

    AI chatbots

    Use LLMs to power intelligent chatbots that respond faster, more accurately, and improve customer engagement.

  • Virtualization server

    Virtualization server

    Run multiple virtual machines for in-house AI model development and testing environments.

  • VM backup & data protection

    VM backup & data protection

    Integrate Veeam® backup solutions to enhance the security of virtual machine data.

  • AI data storage & backup

    AI data storage & backup

    Store raw AI datasets or serve as high-speed storage for frequent data access in RAG-based AI workflows.

Recommended model

Purpose-built for edge AI deployment, the QNAP AI Series NAS, paired with an NVIDIA RTX 6000 or RTX 4000 Ada Generation graphics card, delivers exceptional performance for AI inference, high-resolution media processing, and virtualization.

QAI-h1290FX

  • 12-bay U.2 NVMe / SATA all-flash NAS
  • Powered by AMD EPYC™ 7302P 16-core / 32-thread processor
  • 128GB DDR4 ECC RDIMM memory
  • Pre-installed with six 3.84TB U.2 NVMe SSDs
  • Available with pre-installed NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada or RTX 4000 Ada GPU
  • Includes QAI-exclusive features, such as the Container Station with curated open-source AI app templates for quick deployment
QAI-h1290FX

Need assistance?

QNAP experts are ready to help you design the ideal Edge AI storage server for your business.

Choose specification

      Show more Less

      Choose Your Country or Region

      open menu
      back to top