Three infrastructure announcements on November 5 sit at different layers of the same stack. A funding round for querying huge datasets with AI agents, a networking deal for a new inference cloud, and a storage test at CERN for keeping data for decades.

Ocient: 100 million dollars and revenue set to triple

Ocient, a Chicago data analytics company, raised a $100 million Series C co-led by BOKA Capital and OCA Ventures. Returning investors include Greycroft, In-Q-Tel, Blue Bear Capital, Buoyant Ventures, PSP Growth and Pritzker Group Venture Capital. Total funding is now $260 million. No valuation was given.

Anyone who has built the software side of a connected product knows the glue job. The device keeps its readings in one format and the gateway wants rows in a SQL database, so somebody writes a converter. Then somebody has to keep that converter alive for as long as the device stays in the field, which can easily be ten years.

AltSql takes the converter out. Its base engine, AltSql Core, compiles to about 15 KB of code for a microcontroller. The device keeps its readings and settings in its own flash and goes on deciding from its own data when the connection goes. Its gateway stores the very same records, byte for byte, and answers SQL over them.

Most dashboards ask the same few questions all day long: requests per endpoint, say, or this month’s usage for one customer. The usual setup recounts raw rows on every refresh, or ships every row to a hosted service that bills by the gigabyte.

Precomputing does the counting once, as the data comes in. You write a short policy that names the answers you want and says how long each level of detail should live. It compiles to plain SQLite triggers, so every INSERT keeps those answers current and reading one is a lookup. Old detail fades on your schedule; unusual events are kept whole.