Why GPUs Sit Idle: The AI Training Data Pipeline Problem

This post details how Backblaze B2 Overdrive addresses the storage and throughput requirements for AI training data pipelines, enabling up to 1Tbps throughput and S3-compatible integration for PyTorch and TensorFlow pipelines. It highlights the importance of always-hot object storage with no tiering or retrieval delays, and a high-throughput layer to feed petabyte-scale GPU clusters continuously. The post also explains how this foundation benefits checkpointing by making writes and recoveries faster, reducing GPU time spent on these operations.