Oracle stock falls after report reveals thin margins in AI cloud business
SEATTLE - F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV), whose stock has surged 62% over the past year and currently trades near its 52-week high of $313, announced Thursday an expanded strategic partnership with MinIO to address the growing demands of data-intensive AI workloads across distributed environments. According to InvestingPro data, F5 maintains impressive gross profit margins of 80.9%, indicating strong operational efficiency.
The collaboration combines F5’s Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP) with MinIO’s AIStor Enterprise Edition to create a hybrid multicloud solution for AI/ML data pipelines, data repatriation, and exascale data storage.
The partnership aims to tackle challenges including high public cloud costs, latency issues in AI workflows, and the need for secure data access and scalability. According to the companies, the joint solution is already being utilized by a leading global automotive manufacturer to collect data from vehicles worldwide for AI model training and improvement.
The integrated offering supports several key use cases including traffic management for AI data ingestion, data repatriation from public clouds, secure multicloud backup, and AI model training.
"This technology alliance partnership showcases the power of two leading platforms coming together to improve how data is managed, transported, and secured at exascale," said John Maddison, Chief Product and Corporate Marketing Officer at F5.
Garima Kapoor, co-CEO and co-founder of MinIO, added that the partnership provides enterprises with "a scalable, secure solution that delivers confidence when deploying and managing their AI initiatives."
The companies stated in their press release that the solution is currently deployed across various industries including automotive, manufacturing, IoT, cloud service providers, and finance.
In other recent news, F5 Networks has reported favorable second-quarter earnings, with revenue and earnings per share (EPS) surpassing consensus estimates by increasing 2% and $0.32, respectively. The company has also raised its full-year 2025 revenue and EPS guidance, reflecting strong demand for systems refresh. Needham has initiated coverage of F5 Networks with a Buy rating and a $320 price target, citing a robust refresh cycle and enhancements to its BigIP suite. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs has maintained a Neutral stance with a $300 price target, noting that F5’s EPS exceeded expectations due to lower taxes and unexpected Other income.
F5 has introduced post-quantum cryptography solutions to enhance cybersecurity in the face of quantum computing threats. These solutions are integrated into its Application Delivery and Security Platform, providing encryption capabilities across various environments. Additionally, F5 has enhanced its BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes platform with NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs, improving AI infrastructure by delivering better traffic management and security.
The company has also integrated NGINX Plus with Red Hat Enterprise Linux to achieve FIPS compliance, offering a secure solution for safeguarding sensitive data. This integration is available on AWS Marketplace, providing a streamlined experience for customers needing compliance and security. Despite these advancements, F5 Networks has observed a slowdown in its Software segment revenue, attributed to the cyclical nature of software renewals, though a rebound is anticipated later in the fiscal year.
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