Seven Tech Trailblazers alumni making waves in AI, cloud, cyber security, networking and storage

The team here at Tech Trailblazers Towers always loves seeing our alumni continue to blaze new trails. This week has been a particularly busy one, with five previous Tech Trailblazers Awards winners and runners-up appearing in positive, high-profile news across AI infrastructure, agentic security, hybrid cloud, software supply chain security and enterprise data protection.

The team here at Tech Trailblazers Towers always loves seeing our alumni continue to blaze new trails. This week has been a particularly busy one, with five previous Tech Trailblazers Awards winners and runners-up appearing in positive, high-profile news across AI infrastructure, agentic security, hybrid cloud, software supply chain security and enterprise data protection.

Here at Tech Trailblazers, we’re proud to celebrate the startups and scaleups we spotted early — and even prouder when those companies go on to shape some of the biggest conversations in enterprise tech.

Atsign expands AI Architect for secure-by-design agentic systems

We’re also pleased to spotlight Atsign, named winner of the 2024 Networking Trailblazers Award, for its latest AI Architect news. The 2024 Tech Trailblazers winners page lists Atsign, Inc. as the Networking Trailblazers winner.

Founders on Fire with Colin Constable, Co-Founder & CTO of Atsign

Atsign has announced expanded AI Architect capabilities designed to help enterprise teams build secure-by-design agentic systems from prompt to production. The update adds MCP-powered co-architecting, native AI agent modelling and governance capabilities, helping teams define security, authority, privileges and data boundaries before code is generated.

The news has also been covered by IT Brief UK, which reported that Atsign has expanded AI Architect with Model Context Protocol integration and native AI agent modelling for designing and governing enterprise AI systems.

It’s especially good to see this momentum after Rose Ross spoke with Colin Constable, Atsign’s Co-founder and CTO, on Founders on Fire, where they discussed internet security, privacy and eliminating network attack surfaces.

Cohesity secures patent milestone for enterprise GenAI data

Finally, congratulations to Cohesity, our 2016 Storage Trailblazers Winner, which was highlighted by Blocks & Files after securing a US patent for foundational technology behind Cohesity Gaia, its generative AI platform for enterprise data. The patent covers a method for combining secondary data systems with a retrieval-augmented generation semantic layer to support GenAI applications.

For those of us who have followed the storage and data protection world for years, this is a fascinating milestone. It shows how backup, secondary data and cyber resilience are becoming central to the next wave of enterprise AI.

https://www.blocksandfiles.com/flash/2026/06/11/storage-ticker-11-june/5253949?utm_source=chatgpt.com

NetRise expands software supply chain security through partners

We’re delighted to see NetRise, a 2025 Security Trailblazers Runner-up and 2023 Internet of Things Trailblazers Winner, continuing its momentum with the launch of the NetRise Discovery Partner Program. The programme is designed to expand access to NetRise’s software supply chain security platform through VARs, MSSPs, distributors, technology alliances and strategic consultants.

NetRise has been trailblazing at the intersection of IoT, firmware and software supply chain security — areas that are only becoming more critical as enterprises seek deeper visibility into what is really running inside their technology estates.

Nutanix teams with NTT DATA on hybrid cloud and AI modernisation

A big shout-out to Nutanix, our 2013 Cloud Trailblazers Winner, following its strategic partnership with NTT DATA across the Middle East and Africa. The collaboration is focused on accelerating hybrid multicloud adoption, infrastructure modernisation and AI readiness, particularly for organisations needing secure, scalable and sovereign cloud environments.

Cloud has moved far beyond its early definitions, and Nutanix’s latest partnership shows how central hybrid cloud infrastructure has become to AI adoption, data sovereignty and regulated-sector innovation. It is another great example of a Cloud Trailblazers winner continuing to influence the enterprise technology landscape.

VAST Data powers sovereign AI ambitions across Australia and APAC

Huge congratulations to VAST Data, our 2020 Storage Trailblazers Winner, which has expanded its partnership with Sharon AI. Under the agreement, Sharon AI will deploy 600PB of the VAST AI Operating System across its AI cloud infrastructure, making VAST the foundational data layer for sovereign AI infrastructure serving government, enterprise, research and AI-native customers across Australia and Asia-Pacific.

This is exactly the kind of bold infrastructure story that underlines why VAST Data stood out to our judges in the Storage Trailblazers category. AI may be the headline, but without the right data foundation beneath it, ambition stays just that: ambition.

Rose Ross also interviewed Jeff Denworth, CMO and Co-Founder of VAST Data, for our Founders on Fire series — a lovely chance to revisit the company’s trailblazing journey from standout storage startup to global AI infrastructure enabler. 

Founders on Fire: Jeff Denworth, CMO and Co-Founder, VAST Data

Zero Networks tackles microsegmentation myths — and publishes new lateral movement research

The team here at Tech Trailblazers Towers is delighted to see Zero Networks, a 2020 Security Trailblazers runner-up, continuing to challenge long-standing assumptions in enterprise security. Tech Trailblazers’ 2020 winners page lists Zero Networks among the Security Trailblazers runners-up.

In a recent Computer Weekly / MicroScope article, Zero Networks discussed its work with partners to educate customers around microsegmentation and tackle misconceptions about complexity and cost. The piece highlights Zero Networks’ channel-first approach in the UK and EMEA, including its work with Exclusive Networks.

That partner education message is reinforced by Zero Networks’ new 2026 Lateral Movement Exposure Report, which analysed 54 trillion activities across 312 live enterprise environments. Among the findings: 80% of enterprise servers are reachable from anywhere inside the network, and 87% accept inbound RDP or SSH from broad internal sources. Readers can download the Zero Networks 2026 Lateral Movement Exposure Report here.

Here at Tech Trailblazers, we’re proud to see a previous Security Trailblazers runner-up continuing to make the case for practical, scalable approaches to reducing lateral movement and improving cyber resilience. Congratulations to the Zero Networks team.

Zscaler advances zero trust for the agentic AI era

Congratulations also to Zscaler, our 2013 Security Trailblazers Winner, which used Zenith Live 2026 to unveil new innovations for securing agentic AI and expanding Zero Trust SASEp. Its announcements included Zscaler AI Broker, Endpoint AI Security, AI Access Graph and the ZAgent Framework, all aimed at helping enterprises secure how AI agents connect, access data and operate across the business.

Back in 2013, Zscaler was already pushing the security market toward a cloud-first, zero trust future. More than a decade later, it is brilliant to see a Tech Trailblazers alumnus still helping define what enterprise security needs to become next.

Congratulations to our Tech Trailblazing alumni

We congratulate all of our previous Tech Trailblazer Awards winners and runners-up — including Atsign, Cohesity,  Nutanix, NetRise, Nutanix, VAST Data, Zero Networks and Zscaler — on continuing to push enterprise technology forward.

From sovereign AI factories and agentic security to hybrid cloud, software supply chain visibility and AI-ready enterprise data, these stories show just how much impact Tech Trailblazers alumni continue to have across the industry.

And to the next generation of trailblazers: could this be you?

Entries for the Tech Trailblazers Awards 2026 are open to privately held technology startups and scaleups, at C-series funding or below, less than ten years old at the time of entry, and operating in — or highly relevant to — one of our enterprise technology award categories, including AI, cloud, cyber security, storage, IoT and more.

Find out more and enter at https://techtrailblazers.com/