Rewriting the rules of data: How a U.S. firm is powering Czechia's tech boom

Whether you’re an internet consumer or large business, data storage and security are paramount. Seizing on Czechia’s ever-growing business, IT, and tech sectors, Pure Storage has neatly filled this market demand—with exciting growth and job opportunities for expats on the horizon. 

The American digital-storage firm has a production plant based in the Czech region of Pardubice and, notably, has one of its three global research and development (R&D) sites in Prague, which is also the company’s largest hub outside the U.S.

At the core of Pure Storage’s aim is reshaping how consumers and firms handle, and store, their sensitive data. The surging trend of artificial intelligence (AI) has made this even more relevant today, and the company now has its eyes firmly set on international tech talent to help drive progress. Laser vision, you could say.

Pure’s impressive unit and nearly 10-year collaboration with Foxconn, the world's largest contract manufacturer of electronics, further underlines its huge market presence. With a campus area of over 1 million square feet, Pure’s Pardubice production plant ships components worldwide, with train links to Dresden and even China. Impressively, one-third of all its materials are produced at this plant.

For Paul Melmon, the head of Prague’s R&D center, “innovation is the foundation” of Pure Storage’s growth and success. The company, Melmon says, wants to “consistently deliver industry-first technologies and solutions to our customers.” To continue doing this, it needs top talent that can support Pure’s rapid recent growth.

The company rigorously produces some of its flagship, proprietary all-flash storage products, like the FlashBlade and FlashArray, at the Foxconn plant. It also develops parts of Evergreen, its special cloud-operating storage-as-a-service model. 

Flash is the now and future, Pure Storage believes, as flash storage systems offer many advantages over traditional disk storage. They’re faster, especially when handling random data access, and they use much less power—about one-tenth of what disk systems need—making them more energy-efficient and eco-friendly. 

Flash storage can also hold more data in less space and is much more reliable, lasting longer and reducing downtime. It’s also key to note that hard disks have been evolving for over 70 years, leaving little room for further improvement. In contrast, flash storage, with around 30 years of development driven by its use in mobile devices, still has significant potential to become more efficient and compact.

Pure is well-equipped to leverage AI due to its decade-long focus on building infrastructure specifically designed for AI applications. Its AI-ready architecture, AIRI, released in 2018 in partnership with tech giant Nvidia, ensures it can handle diverse AI workloads. 

Pure systems, which rely on flash storage, make data more accessible for AI models. The firm’s experience and early investments have positioned them as a key provider, with major references like Meta's AI supercluster, which uses Pure for its storage needs.

“Non-customized AI solutions will fall out of favor in 2025. Retrieval augmented generation [which pulls in external information using AI] will become a non-negotiable inclusion for enterprises and it will take over as the adopted method of implementing AI,” Pure believes.

Pure’s focus on flash systems increases its efficiency and sustainability. Melmon says that Pure is meeting its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals by creating products that use less energy, take up less space, and create less e-waste. 

For example, Pure’s all-flash data centers consume up to five times less power and rack space than those of competitors, and their FlashArray and FlashBlade products use up to 86 percent less energy than similar solutions.

Melmon says Pure Storage is also committed to responsible recycling, partnering with global services to ensure the sustainable handling of displaced technology. This bodes well for the company’s future growth.

Czechia’s rapidly growing tech firm has an exciting future ahead of it—especially in the age of AI. Its strong commitment to innovation—investing around 20 percent of revenues into research and development, which is well above the industry average—ensures that the company stays at the forefront of technology. 

Coexisting with its large Pardubice plant, the Prague R&D center—it today has over 600 employees from over 50 different countries—plays a pivotal role in the company’s success. It has also seen rapid growth, with its engineering team expanding sevenfold since 2020. 

The center benefits from Prague's rich talent pool, its robust education system, and the city's appeal to professionals across Europe. This combination of innovation, global talent, and strategic investment positions Pure Storage for continued growth in a USD 60 billion (CZK 1.44 billion) market, ensuring a promising future, and a good chance to join the company’s upward trajectory now.