Quantum has announced a new generation of its tape library offering.

The storage provider this week announced its new Scalar i7 Raptor tape library, designed to handle advanced AI workloads for hyperscalers.

The company says its latest design is engineered to deliver the densest and most scalable tape solution.

Quantum says this will give customers a low-cost, green, and secure solution for data lakes, data protection, and private and hybrid cloud deployments in a landscape where organizations are looking to retain large amounts of data to support AI models.

Bruno Hald, VP of secondary storage at Quantum, said: “As the pioneers in tape technology, we used our expertise and input from our major hyperscale customers to develop the most advanced tape solution built for these emerging use cases.”

The Scalar i7 Raptor offers anti-ransomware features, such as tape blocking, for building cyber-resilient private and hybrid clouds.

The company says a key benefit of the solution set is its AI-driven predictive analytics which can characterize drive-media interactions, predict robotic failures, and gather critical system data.

The Scalar i7 Raptor is built to integrate with Quantum’s storage solution, ActiveScale. Quantum says the high density of its tape library will reduce the data center floor space required to house the system.

Quantum’s current Scalar line offers three products: a 25-400 tape slot i3 with 1-24 half-height drives, a 50-800 slot i6 with 1-24 full-height drives, and the i600 with 100-14,100 slots and 1-192 full-height drives.

The tape slots and specifications for the Scalar i7 have not been shared. The Scalar i7 Raptor line replaces the i6H line, which was also built for hyperscalers and offered tape blocking and predictive analytics.

The Scalar i7 Raptor will be available early next and units are anticipated to go into customer testing and certification by the end of the year.