Why Redpanda & Akamai Are Building the Future of Real-Time AI | Zeke Dean

Zeke, as we all know, Red Panda is now part of this program. For those who may not be aware, and I doubt who is not, can you introduce Red Panda and explain what makes this partnership strategically important for both companies? Uh so, Red Panda is an agentic data platform built on top of a streaming technology called Red Panda that's fully compatible with the Apache Kafka API. We re-architected data streaming to be simpler to operate, faster under load, and more reliable at scale. Now, what makes this collaboration especially exciting is that it pairs real-time uh streaming with Akamai's distributed cloud platform built on Linode. So, customers can run high-performance sensitive workloads closer to the users, the devices, and where the data is actually originating. So, this isn't just a technology handshake. This partnership formally brings Red Panda into Akamai's qualified cloud computing program and establishes a co-sell motion where Akamai can sell Red Panda Enterprise Edition on Akamai Cloud with Red Panda providing first-line support. Now, Linode. One of the reasons builders love it is that it's designed to be straightforward, fast provisioning, developer-friendly tooling, and a managed Kubernetes experience that is very, very well done and is predictable to operate. For example, Linode's LKE managed Kubernetes experience gives you production-like clusters in minutes. And on the performance side, from my own benchmark testing, Linode's platform uses SSDs for core compute, high-performance NVMe storage blocks for intensive workloads. Great for low latency and data-intensive applications. So, here's why timing on this partnership matters. More of our customers and Akamai's customers are trying to build agentic and AI-driven applications. The winning architectures will be the ones that combine low-latency inference with fresh, trustworthy, real-time data. Akamai's Inference Cloud is designed to run inference closer to the users on edge and do performance optimization. Pairing with Red Panda gives customers a clean path from event streamings to improving the context and action at global scale. The Akamai Inference Cloud runs the inference closer to the users, and then Red Panda can run right where the customers are, right at their event data, and everything else. So, bottom line is Akamai brings globally distributed compute and edge reach. Red Panda brings a real-time streaming backbone. Together, we'll make it dramatically easier for enterprises to deploy and operate next-generation real-time and agentic applications worldwide.

Redpanda is now part of Akamai’s Qualified Compute Partner Program, and the partnership is strategically positioned to power next-generation agentic and AI-driven applications. Zeke Dean, Senior Partner Solutions Engineer at Redpanda, explains what makes this collaboration essential: combining low latency inference with fresh, real-time data at global scale. Akamai brings globally distributed compute and edge reach, while Redpanda delivers a real-time streaming backbone that's simpler to operate, faster under load, and more reliable at scale. Together, they're making it dramatically easier for enterprises to deploy and operate real-time applications worldwide. Read the full story at www.tfir.io #Redpanda #Akamai #RealTimeStreaming #EdgeComputing #AgenticAI #DataStreaming #CloudComputing #Kubernetes #LowLatency #EnterpriseAI