Zoho Launches An In-House Server Platform

Zoho Corporation has unveiled Nathu La, a server platform designed and developed in-house as part of the company’s efforts to build and operate its own technology stack, spanning hardware, infrastructure and software.

The server, developed in collaboration with Intel and powered by Intel Xeon 6 processors, is expected to support Zoho’s applications and artificial intelligence workloads across its global data centre infrastructure.

According to the company, Nathu La delivers comparable performance while consuming between 12 and 18 percent less power and reducing total cost of ownership by between 20 and 30 percent. The lower operating costs are also expected to reduce AI inference expenses.

“Zoho Corporation has invested in building its own technology stack from the ground up over the last three decades. The Nathu La server launch is in line with that goal,” said Veerakumar Natarajan, Country Head, Zoho Kenya. “With our strategy of using contextual, right-sized models, running on our own platform, on our own servers, in our own data centres, we are compounding the benefits accrued from owning and operating our entire technology stack. This ensures that our solutions are more sustainable and accessible for businesses. These long-term R&D investments we are making at every layer of the stack are aimed at delivering customer value.”

The server’s architecture is based on principles from the Open Compute Project (OCP), an open-source initiative focused on improving efficiency and scalability in data centre hardware. Zoho said the design prioritises modularity, thermal efficiency and ease of maintenance.

By hosting its software applications on internally designed hardware, the company aims to optimise performance for specific workloads while strengthening data governance and reducing infrastructure costs.

The development of Nathu La began five years ago and involved work across hardware engineering, firmware development and systems management. The platform was built by a research and development team based in Nagpur, India, where Zoho established a hardware engineering unit in 2020.

Some members of the team were recruited through SETU (Student’s Engagement for Transformative Upskilling), a programme created to develop engineering talent in areas such as Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM). More than 300 students have participated in the initiative, with some joining Zoho’s engineering teams.

The Nathu La platform includes a custom-designed motherboard and chassis and is intended for workloads such as virtualisation, high-performance computing, AI inference and storage applications.

The server also incorporates customised power delivery systems, an internally developed Data Centre Secure Control Module (DC-SCM), and modular chassis configurations designed for different deployment environments. Zoho said key modular components, including the DC-SCM and Network Interface Card (NIC), were designed by its hardware engineering team and manufactured through partner facilities.

The company has filed more than five patents related to thermal management and server architecture technologies developed during the project.

Security was another focus area during development. Zoho said the platform incorporates hardware-based security features and is designed to reduce reliance on external providers for firmware management, security audits and licensing.

The launch comes as organisations increasingly explore greater control over their technology infrastructure amid growing interest in digital sovereignty, data governance and the economics of AI computing.