Announcing the First Decentralized Storage Integration with Snowflake

Data infrastructure is hitting an inflection point.

As demand grows for scale, security, and flexibility, traditional cloud storage is starting to show its limits—rising costs, vendor lock-in, and centralized risk are becoming harder to ignore. Meanwhile, Snowflake has become the go-to data cloud for enterprises, enabling powerful features like Iceberg tables, vector search, and AI-driven analytics.

Now, Akave is pushing the stack even further as the first decentralized storage layer integrated with Snowflake.

This breakthrough opens up new possibilities for enterprises looking to reduce costs, improve resilience, and maintain full compatibility with their existing workflows. Keep reading for a technical deep dive into how it works.

Akave at a Glance

Akave is a decentralized storage network designed to provide scalable, high-performance, and cost-efficient cloud storage. Built to be fully S3-compatible, Akave’s O3 gateway allows enterprises to store their data in a verifiable and resilient way, without changing their existing workflows or tech stack.

Akave Cloud is our enterprise-ready storage layer that brings the power of decentralized infrastructure to modern data platforms, starting with full compatibility for Snowflake.

Key Features of Akave

• Decentralized Architecture: Removes reliance on centralized cloud providers, reducing costs and removing dependencies and single points of failure. 
• End to End Data Verifiability and Transparency - [Explore Akave’s Data Security Framework here.]
• S3 Compatibility: Ensures seamless compatibility with existing tools and platforms.
• Enterprise-Grade Performance: Provides low-latency access to data with global availability.
• Filecoin Integration: Akave integrates with Filecoin as an additional storage layer, providing further redundancy and security for long-term data storage.
  
  

Data Flow in the Akave Network

The diagram below shows how data flows through the Akave Network, as used by Akave Cloud integrations. You can find a deeper dive into each step in our documentation.

With Snowflake powering enterprise analytics at scale, Akave brings decentralized storage into the mix, boosting performance, security, and architectural flexibility. Read on to learn how the integration unlocks real value.

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Snowflake Snapshot

Snowflake is the leading cloud data platform that enables businesses to store, manage, and analyze massive amounts of data. It offers a fully managed, multi-cloud environment designed to support modern analytics and AI applications.

Key Snowflake Features

• Data Warehousing: Provides high-performance SQL-based analytics at scale.
• Iceberg Tables: Enables open table formats that allow interoperability across storage systems.
• AI & Machine Learning: Supports generative AI, vector search, and embedded models.
• Cross-Cloud Compatibility: Works across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud with seamless data sharing.

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With its focus on performance, security, and AI-driven insights, Snowflake is the backbone of modern data-driven enterprises. For a closer look at Snowflake’s architecture, check out their documentation.

Beyond the Centralized Cloud: Why Akave is Different

While Snowflake relies heavily on cloud storage solutions like AWS S3, Azure Blob Storage, and Google Cloud Storage, Akave introduces a decentralized alternative that brings unique advantages:

1. Lower Costs — Decentralized storage eliminates costly cloud provider markups while maintaining S3 compatibility.
2. Improved Security — Data is distributed across multiple nodes, reducing the risk of centralized breaches or data loss.
3. No Vendor Lock-in — Enterprises retain full control over their storage and avoid reliance on a single cloud provider.
4. Interoperability with Iceberg Tables — Akave integrates with Snowflake’s Iceberg tables, allowing organizations to leverage open table formats without being locked into proprietary cloud storage solutions.
5. AI and Vector Storage Use Cases — With the rise of vector databases, Akave enables efficient decentralized storage for embeddings, supporting Snowflake’s AI-driven analytics.

By bridging decentralized infrastructure with enterprise-grade performance, Akave empowers organizations to unlock new possibilities in AI, analytics, and data architecture. Akave redefines what storage can do, creating the backbone of a smarter, more secure, AI-ready data stack.

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How Akave Extends Snowflake’s Data Stack

Snowflake’s powerful data infrastructure is built on three core layers:

• Compute Layer – Virtual warehouses that handle query execution and processing.
• Storage Layer – Stores structured and unstructured data in Snowflake’s proprietary format.
• Cloud Services – Orchestrates tasks like security, metadata management, and query optimization.
  
  

A Recognized Vendor, A New Kind of Storage

Now officially listed among Snowflake’s supported storage vendors, Akave extends the platform’s flexibility with decentralized storage that plugs directly into Snowflake’s architecture.

Here’s how the integration works:

• External Stage/Data Lake Support
  Akave functions as an external stage (or data lake), allowing Snowflake users to query data stored on Akave without moving or duplicating it.
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• Iceberg Table Compatibility
  Akave supports Apache Iceberg, enabling seamless compatibility with Snowflake’s native support for open table formats.
  
  
• AI-Ready Storage for Vector Embeddings
  Store and access vector data generated by Snowflake’s AI and ML pipelines directly on Akave—ideal for use cases involving embeddings and vector search.
  
  
• S3-Compatible API
  Akave offers an S3-compatible interface, making it simple for Snowflake users to migrate existing workflows without needing custom integrations.

By integrating seamlessly with Snowflake’s architecture, Akave extends Snowflake’s capabilities while keeping everything that enterprise teams already know and use.

Connect Akave to Snowflake in just a few lines of SQL

One of the most compelling advantages of this integration is just how easy it is to get started. Snowflake users can adopt decentralized storage by updating only a few lines of code—no need to overhaul existing workflows.

Organizations already leveraging Snowflake for AI and analytics can seamlessly switch their storage backend to Akave, while continuing to use the same SQL-based queries, Iceberg tables, and vector search functionalities. This opens the door to new efficiencies without adding complexity.

Key use cases include:

• Cost Optimization
  Offload non-critical or archival datasets to Akave’s decentralized network, reducing cloud storage costs while keeping high-performance workloads in Snowflake.
  
  
• Regulatory Compliance & Data Sovereignty
  Gain more control over where your data resides. Akave enables geographically distributed storage to support compliance and sovereignty requirements.
  
  
• AI & ML Pipelines
  Easily store vector data and embeddings used in Snowflake Cortex AI or other ML pipelines—Akave supports performant, decentralized storage for modern AI workflows.
  
  

By integrating Akave as a Snowflake-compatible storage layer, enterprises unlock the best of both centralized performance and decentralized flexibility, without compromise.

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Get Started with Snowflake + Akave

Akave is redefining cloud data infrastructure as the first decentralized storage layer compatible with Snowflake. This integration empowers enterprises to cut storage costs, strengthen data sovereignty, and adopt decentralized storage, without disrupting existing workflows.

As demand grows for open formats, AI-ready infrastructure, and cost-efficient cloud strategies, Akave is leading the shift, bringing decentralized, enterprise-grade storage into the heart of modern data stacks.

Explore the integration in Snowflake’s official documentation and start building with Akave.

Documentation: Snowflake Guide – S3-Compatible Storage

See how Akave Cloud can fit into your data stack. Connect with us today.