As artificial intelligence adoption drives up computing and infrastructure costs, Zoho has expanded beyond software development with the launch of its first in-house server platform, Nathu La. The new platform is designed to support AI and cloud workloads while giving the company greater control over its technology infrastructure.
Developed by Zoho’s engineering team in Nagpur in partnership with Intel, Nathu La is powered by Intel Xeon 6 processors and will be deployed across Zoho’s data centres. The company said the platform delivers comparable performance while reducing power consumption by 12-18% and lowering total cost of ownership by 20-30%.
The move comes as AI-related infrastructure expenses continue to rise across the technology industry. According to Zoho, growing compute and inference costs played a key role in its decision to develop its own server platform.
Speaking about the initiative, Ramprakash Ramamoorthy, Director of AI Research at Zoho Corp, said, “Hardware is one area where we have traditionally relied on global OEMs. But infrastructure has become foundational and if compute becomes foundational, we should own it.”
Zoho currently serves more than 150 million users worldwide and operates over 16 data centres. The company revealed that the cost of purchasing similar server configurations has increased significantly over the last 6 months, making infrastructure one of the largest cost components for software companies.
Unlike conventional hardware manufacturers, Zoho does not plan to commercialise Nathu La. The platform has been built primarily for internal use and is already supporting selected workloads across the company’s operations.
“We launched a server platform primarily for internal use. We are dogfooding it as we speak. Zoho runs on Zoho,” Ramamoorthy said.
The company currently has a few hundred Nathu La servers deployed and expects that number to grow to around 2,000 by the end of the year.
The announcement also comes amid ongoing discussions by Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu about the impact of AI on learning and careers. Vembu recently cautioned against excessive reliance on AI tools, stating, “AI can make you smarter faster but AI can also make you dumber faster.”
He has consistently argued that strong fundamentals and critical thinking remain essential, while highlighting professions such as teaching, caregiving, farming, forest conservation, temple service, and classical music as careers likely to retain long-term relevance in an AI-driven world.
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