SmartX has been named a representative vendor in Gartner’s Market Guide for Container Management Platforms in China, recognizing its growing momentum in AI-native cloud infrastructure. This article explores how SmartX Kubernetes Service (SKS) aligns with emerging trends in GPU orchestration, AI workloads, and unified cloud management—while helping enterprises modernize beyond VMware with integrated VM and container operations on a single platform.
Lead the new standard for critical business support in HCI with SmartX ECP 6.3.
In Q1 2026, SmartX debuts ECP 6.3 & AI Platform for mission-critical workloads, while hitting 11 quarters atop China’s HCI software market.
IDC released the latest “IDC China HCI Market Overview, 2025 Q3”. In the HCI software rankings for the first three quarters of 2025, SmartX ranked first with a 33.1% market share. This marks the 11th consecutive quarter that SmartX has led the Chinese HCI software market (from Q1 2023 to Q3 2025).
In 2025, SmartX solidified its leadership in the HKMO market, dominating IDC and Gartner rankings for HCI and virtualization. By launching ECP 6.2 and SKS 1.5, SmartX accelerated the global “VMware exit” movement, delivering mission-critical reliability to finance, healthcare, and manufacturing. From robust IT modernization to cutting-edge AI infrastructure, SmartX is no longer just an alternative—it is the new standard for the AI era.
SmartX has been recognized for the third consecutive year as a Representative Vendor in Gartner’s Market Guide for Server Virtualization Platforms, highlighting its production-grade virtualization platform and large-scale enterprise deployments that empower users to accelerate VMware replacement with proven stability and cost efficiency.
SmartX ranks No.1 in China’s HCI software market for the 10th consecutive quarter, strengthening its leadership in full-stack enterprise cloud and VMware alternatives.
In Q3 2025, we provided an in-depth analysis of SmartX ECP as an enterprise IT infrastructure solution and VMware alternative through two blog series – Busting the Myths and SmartX vs. VMware. We continued to work closely with enterprises, especially large manufacturers, to modernize IT infrastructure and connect with our partners through various events.
In Q2 2025, IDC recognized SmartX for topping China’s HCI software market for the second consecutive year. We continued to innovate our products and solutions, with the release of SKS 1.4 and significant upgrades of the VCCI solution in security management. We also shared compelling customer stories across the financial services and healthcare sectors, showcasing how SmartX ECP enables core system operations, serves as a VMware alternative, and facilitates IT modernization.
In Q1 2025, SmartX continued to be recognized by IDC and Gartner as the leader in China’s HCI Software Market. We released SmartX ECP v6.2 and enhanced various features in security, performance, availability, and O&M support. Facing enterprise demands regarding DeepSeek, we introduced a private deployment solution based on SmartX ECP to accelerate enterprises’ DeepSeek deployment and validation process.
Visit us at Booth A13 to delve deeper into our AI infrastructure solution and discover how SmartX ECP can benefit insurance companies!
According to the recent IDC report, SmartX leads the China HCI software market with a share of 30.5% in 2024 Q1-Q3, which also marks the 7th consecutive quarter that SmartX has taken the lead (2023 Q1 – 2024 Q3).
In Q4 2024, SmartX continued to be recognized by IDC as the leader in China’s HCI Software Market for the first half of 2024. We further expanded the HK & MO markets and have acquired several enterprise-grade use cases with the help of our partners including Homison Solutions and Zens.
According to “IDC China Software-defined Storage and Hyperconverged System Market Overview, 2024 Q2” report, SmartX continues to lead the China HCI software market with a share of 25.5% in 2024H1.
In Q3 2024, SmartX continued receiving recognition from IDC and Gartner for our HCI-powered Enterprise Cloud Platform (ECP) and native hypervisor ELF. We also hosted the HK Grand Opening Event and VMware HCI Alternative Webinar to strengthen our collaboration with HK & MO partners and cus…
On September 13, 2024, SmartX successfully hosted the HK Grand Opening and Channel Kick-off Event, bringing together partners from Hong Kong and Macao. The event aimed to empower our partners to help more HK and MO enterprise customers modernize their IT infrastructures with restricted budgets but increased efficiency using SmartX Enterprise Cloud Platform (ECP).
In the recently released “Market Guide for Server Virtualization” by Gartner, SmartX was again recognized as a representative vendor due to the rich enterprise features of its native hypervisor ELF, its capabilities of VMware replacement and migration, as well as its various customer cases in production environments.
IDC has published “IDC China Software-defined Storage and Hyperconverged System Market Overview, 2024 Q1”, analyzing the China HCI market and the China HCI SW+Certified Server System market for the first quarter of 2024.
In Q2 2024, SmartX was recognized by IDC as the leader in China's HCI software market for the full year of 2023. We have upgraded our hyperconverged software HCI 6.0 with five added features and four new scenarios to meet the emerging demands in the AI and container era. Additionally, we have provided our customers with valuable guides on VMware replacement and VM migration.
In the AI and container era, SmartX announces hyperconverged software HCI 6.0 with key upgrades, including 5 added features and 4 new scenarios, to help our customers address challenges in supporting different architecture and various new applications, managing and maintaining IT infrastructure, and replacing VMware products.
SmartX takes nearly a quarter of the market, with a share of 23.5%.
This is the second year that SmartX is included in the report.
In Q1 2024, SmartX continued to receive recognition from IDC for our leading market share in China’s HCI Software market. Dedicated to IT infrastructure innovation, we released SKS 1.2 with outstanding performance and enhanced Kubernetes support for AI applications. We’ve also provided professional solutions targeting customers’ needs for ransomware protection and VMware replacement.
The recently published “IDC China Software-defined Storage and Hyperconverged System Market Overview, 2023 Q3” report analyzes the market share of HCI appliances and independently-sold HCI software (HCI Software Integrated System. In HCI software market share, SmartX continues to lead with 19.4% market share in 2023 Q3, following the dominance from previous two quarters (2023 Q2 and Q1).
2023 marks a new milestone for SmartX, as we have helped over 1,000 enterprise customers deploy over 20,000 HCI nodes worldwide. We continued to upgrade our products and solutions, with our HCI portfolio evolving into a full-stack IT infra solution with enhanced capabilities in virtualization, storage, network and security, O&M, DR, migration, and container management. Our products have been widely recognized by research institutions, including Gartner, IDC, Forrester, and GigaOm, and customers from various industries, including financial services, healthcare, and manufacturing.
Gartner released Navigate Cloud Computing and Data Center Infrastructure Markets, evaluating cloud computing and data center technology routes that enable on-premises and hybrid deployments.
SmartX’s container management and service product - SMTX Kubernetes Service (SKS), has received certification from the Certified Kubernetes Conformance Program by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF).
SmartX today announced that it has been named a contender in The Forrester Wave™: Hyperconverged Infrastructure, Q4 2023, published by Forrester Research, Inc. The report identified the most significant 11 providers and evaluated them against 36 criteria. This is SmartX’s debut in the Forrester HCI wave since the report’s last update in Q3 2020.
IDC recently published “China Software-defined Storage and Hyperconverged System Market Overview, 2023 Q2”. SmartX continues to rank No. 1 in the HCI SW Certified System market segment with a market share of 18.1%.
In Q3 2023, SmartX achieved a significant milestone by introducing our upgraded HCI portfolio, SmartX HCI 5.1. We have also received recognition from Gartner and IDC for our Chinese HCI SW Certified System market share and APAC customers’ choices. Moreover, we are actively collaborating with customers in various industries, including Finance, Healthcare, and Manufacturing, to explore HCI scenarios and cater to their specific needs.
SmartX was named an Asia/Pacific Customer’s Choice in the recently released “Voice of the Customer for Full-Stack Hyperconverged Infrastructure Software” by Gartner. This marks the third consecutive year of SmartX being named an APAC Customers’ Choice for HCI software.
Today SmartX announces its ungraded hyper-converged infrastructure portfolio, SmartX HCI 5.1, which can provide unified computing, storage, network, and management support for virtualized and containerized applications in production environments.
Recently, SmartX and Alauda, one of the leading cloud-native platform providers, jointly launched a cloud-native solution with full-stack HCI and container platform. Combining SmartX’s HCI and Kubernetes services with the Alauda Container Platform (ACP), this joint solution provides customers with one-stop services for enterprise cloud, accelerating the cloud-native transformation of enterprise IT infrastructure.
IDC recently published “China Software-defined Storage and Hyperconverged System Market Overview, 2023 Q1.” In contrast to its previous reports, this research additionally explores the HCI SW Certified System market segment, focusing on the “HCI SW + Certified Server” ship model. In this market segment, SmartX ranked 1st with 21.9% market share in 2023Q1.
In Q2 2023, SmartX’s HCI product and native hypervisor ELF have been included in multiple reports from Forrester, IDC and Gartner. On the other hand, our new product, SKS 1.0, can help I&O teams easily deploy and manage production-ready Kubernetes clusters. Our professionality in products and services has also received recognition from customers in finance, healthcare, and manufacturing.
Gartner has recently released its “Market Guide for Server Virtualization”, highlighting the new trends in the server virtualization market. SmartX was recognized as a representative vendor due to its SMTX OS, with capabilities including enterprise features of Native Hypervisor ELF, converged deployment in both VMs and containers, support of various virtualization platforms, and end-to-end optimization in the virtualization layer.
The recent IDC Perspective report, “Hyperconverged Infrastructure Use Will Continue to Grow in Edge Environments”, has highlighted the growing use of HCI at edge sites. SmartX is featured in the report as an HCI vendor offering multiple deployment options.
In this video, 8 customers from various industries, including Guotai Junan Securities, China International Capital Corporation (CICC), Caida Securities, Yingda Asset Management, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Xuanwu Hospital Capital Medical University, Foshan Women and Children Hospital, and Zhejiang Mingri Holding Group, share their insights on SmartX HCI services.
In Q1 2023, SmartX's HCI products have once again gained recognition from Gartner and GigaOm. Besides, our cloud-native open-source products, Virtink and knest, benefit customers with simplified Kubernetes management. We also continue to work closely with academic and industry users from financial services and manufacturing on IT infrastructure modernization.
Gartner has recently released its first-ever "Market Guide for Full-Stack Hyperconverged Infrastructure Software", replacing the Magic Quadrant for Hyperconverged Infrastructure Software. SmartX, among the other 5 vendors including Nutanix, Microsoft, and VMware, is included in this market guide as a representative vendor.
GigaOm, a leading analyst firm, recognizes SmartX as a Fast Mover in its 2022 HCI Radar for both Enterprise and SMB deployments.
Recently, a joint research on FastMove conducted by SmartX and the Advanced Data Systems Laboratory (ADSL) at University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), with the paper titled Revitalizing the Forgotten On-Chip DMA to Expedite Data Movement in NVM-based Storage Systems, was announced as one of the accepted papers at the 21st USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies (FAST ’23).
Gartner has published the report Competitive Landscape: Chinese HCI Large, Specialist, and Crossover Vendors, in which SmartX is identified as a competitive provider in the Chinese HCI market in 2022 due to superior product reliability and performance. This marks the company’s second appearance in this report, following its appearance in Gartner’s first report on the Chinese HCI landscape in 2019.
In Q3 2022, SmartX released Virtink and SMTX Backup & Recovery, providing enterprises with advanced virtualization management for Kubernetes and enhanced data protection for HCI. In August, we also hosted the SmartX HCI Webinar which gave a full walkthrough of our product. Furthermore, we continued to assist companies in financial services, healthcare, and manufacturing with digital transformation of IT infrastructure and business upgrades.
In Q2 2022, SmartX made significant progress in expanding the HCI market. Remarkably, we were recognized as the No.1 pure-play vendor in China HCI market and 2022 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice in APAC for HCI Software. We also released a fully-upgraded HCI product portfolio, and introduced our HCI Kit Community Edition. In addition, we continued to work closely with financial service institutes and healthcare institutions and provided HCI solutions with high performance, flexible scalability and easy O&M.
SmartX, a modern IT infrastructure innovator, has released the newly upgraded SmartX HCI – a hyperconverged infrastructure product portfolio that includes core software SMTX OS, management platform CloudTower, and HCI appliance SMTX Halo. The upgrades include new features to provide optimized performance, security, and management simplicity. With upgraded SmartX HCI, customers can embrace more efficient IT infrastructure while saving up to 50% on costs and focusing on their business priorities.
SmartX has released CloudTower 2.0, a central management platform for multiple clusters across data centers. CloudTower is a crucial member of the SmartX HCI product portfolio, providing visibility and easy management across all HCI clusters. With new features including cross-cluster VM migration, content library, VM user view, access control and security settings, and an optimized interface, CloudTower 2.0 has improved the efficiency, security, and user experience for operations and maintenance.
Recently, Cybernews has interviewed Wenhao Xu, CEO and Co-founder of SmartX, on how to modernize the IT infrastructure to protect businesses from ubiquitous threats. Below is a full report published on cybernews.com.
On April 28, SmartX was recognized as Asia/Pacific Customers’ Choice in the 2022 Gartner Peer Insights “Voice of the Customer”: Hyperconverged Infrastructure Software. This is the 2nd year that SmartX has been named an APAC Customers’ Choice in this field.
SmartX Ranked 1st in China HCI SW Financial Vertical Market for 2 Consecutive Years
In Q1 2022, SmartX released the Network and Security component for HCI to support the “Zero Trust” strategy. We continued to work closely with financial service institutes and public health institutions, providing innovative and easy-to-use HCI to Yingda Asset Management, Jiangsu Suning Bank, The First People’s Hospital of Shunde, etc., to support databases, integrated platforms, and other core systems.
SmartX recently announced that its distributed block storage product SMTX ZBS has achieved the VMware vSphere® Storage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) Block Certification. This enables SmartX to provide more efficient services to its customers by preventing the overhead on ESXi and improving overall performance.
Gartner has released its first “Competitive Landscape: Chinese Infrastructure Software-defined Storage Vendors”. A total of 9 major local vendors competing in the Chinese iSDS market were covered in the report, including SmartX, Huawei, H3C, and Inspur, etc. The market competing capabilities of 4 pure-play iSDS vendors (incl. SmartX) were analyzed in detail.
SmartX is aware of the recently disclosed security issue relating to the open-source Apache Log4j. We are actively monitoring this issue, and so far we’ve confirmed that the HCI software SMTX OS and the distributed storage software SMTX ZBS are not affected.
SmartX and Alauda recently announced that the compatibility certification has been achieved for the persistent storage solution for containers. According to a test result, SmartX’s cloud native storage product IOMesh is fully compatible with Alauda Container Platform (ACP) V3.4.1.
October 13, 2021, LOS ANGELES, Calif. – Today at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America, CNCF announced that SmartX has joined as a silver member to continuously contribute to the development of cloud native technologies. With our leading cloud native storage product IOMesh as a foundation, SmartX will accelerate the development of a series of technologies including containers as well as cloud native storage and network.
BEIJING, China, Sep. 29, 2021 – IOMesh by SmartX, a cloud-native storage product specifically designed and developed for Kubernetes, announced today it has achieved Red Hat OpenShift certification, and is officially available on Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog.
SmartX releases the newest version of SMTX ZBS (v5.0.0), an upgrade of its leading distributed block storage product. With significantly enriched functionality and improved performance, SMTX ZBS provides more stable, performant, and reliable storage services for third-party computing platforms, helping enterprises to build a strong IT infrastructure to support mission-critical applications.